


A Loaded God Complex

by GwendolynGrace



Category: Medium (TV), Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-14
Updated: 2013-06-12
Packaged: 2017-12-14 17:47:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/839646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GwendolynGrace/pseuds/GwendolynGrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The demon-worshipping cult that John has been tracking chooses Sam’s Middle School as their target. But John doesn’t know that there’s already another investigator on the case. <i>Medium</i> crossover (but pre-series, so not necessary to know anything about <i>Medium</i>).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://erinrua.livejournal.com/profile)[**erinrua**](http://erinrua.livejournal.com/) for the gun-fu advice and general beta of awesome, as well as my regular beta [](http://etakyma.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://etakyma.livejournal.com/)**etakyma** , who is made of win. Crenshaw Middle School is fictional; loosely based on Willis Jr. High School. Title is from Fall Out Boy’s “Sugar We’re Goin’ Down” – yeah, yeah, I know. But I’m familiar with the a capella version.

  
October 1996  
Phoenix, Arizona

 

Detective Lee Scanlon. Had a good ring to it. Rolled off the tongue, in fact. _Detective_ Lee Scanlon.

Too bad it was never gonna happen. He’d screwed the pooch on his very first break. Which meant it was sure to be his last.

One-handed, he pushed himself up against the desk leg where he’d been leaning his head. Gentle as he tried to be, the motion made him wince in pain. He turned his head to the other conscious person in the lab where they were holed up, a gangling youth in jeans and a black tee shirt, military haircut, but too young for the service. “Hey, kid,” he said, breath coming shorter than it should. “Uh…Dean.”

“Gotta hold still, man,” the teen told him, cool as any Navy corpsman he’d ever met. Calmer than most, even. “Keep that shoulder as immobile as you can.”

“Not moving the shoulder,” Lee told him impatiently. “Just…you got any Vicodin in that duffel?”

Dean shook his head in a way that told Lee that whether he did or not, he wasn’t going to give it up. “No drugs yet. It’ll dull the pain, you’ll move, and you’ll fuck it up worse. I think the bullet’s stuck in your shoulder. There’s no exit wound.”

To demonstrate, Dean eased him to lean forward and checked the bandages before tying a makeshift sling around his neck. His field dressing was professional, tight and from what Lee could see, not a lot of blood soaked through the pad, but Dean’s handling was a little rough.

“Easy, easy,” Lee gasped. “It’s gotta come out.”

Dean twisted his mouth as if considering his own ability to perform the surgery. “Yeah, but not here. It’s gonna have to wait.”

“Okay…how about some water?”

“That I’ve got,” Dean said. He held out a canteen. Lee tipped it gently against his lips and swallowed several times. At his nod of thanks, Dean went to refill it from the sink.

“You look a little young for this kind of thing,” Lee said when Dean returned. Dean moved like an experienced soldier, who knew that he lived in a war zone. Cat-light, graceful but dangerous, observing every detail with regard for how it could affect his situation. Someone had been training this kid for a long time.

Dean flushed. “I’m almost eighteen.”

“This look like a game of horseshoes to you?” Lee snorted. “So why aren’t you over at the high school? What are you doing here?”

Dean just shrugged.

“Dropped out?” Lee surmised.

“I wish,” the kid said darkly. “You’re really an undercover cop?”

Lee recognized that the young man was turning the tables on him, but he needed the conversation and the distraction more than the truth about Dean. Besides, he already suspected that he knew a fair amount regarding Dean’s involvement with the vigilante who’d identified himself merely as “John.”

“I’m really undercover,” he confirmed. “Or I was, until I blew it back there.”

“That guy was gonna kill us,” Dean assured him hotly. “Then he was probably gonna go back in that room and kill some of those hostages. I mean, yeah, you got made, but you couldn’t let those kids get ganked.”

Privately, Lee wondered if his action had done anything to prevent any sort of murder, but he let the teen console him. He noticed that Dean didn’t say anything else about his own life being saved.

“How about John?” Lee asked into Dean’s reverie. “How did you two meet?”

The hesitation told Lee all he needed to know—more than he wanted. But the mention of Dean’s mentor—more?—snapped the youngster’s attention to the little window in the classroom door. He sidled up to it. “He should be in there by now.” Dean pulled a sidearm out of his waistband and checked the clip. Lee raised his eyebrows reflexively at the sight of Dean’s Colt 1991 A1. He wondered where the boy had got the cash it took for that kind of iron.

Dean tapped the clip against the grip, slid it back into the pommel, and chambered a round. “You gonna be okay alone for a few minutes? I just want to see if I can check out the situation.”

“What was that…you said…about…not letting kids get killed?” Lee asked. Damn, it hurt. “You’re a kid, and I’m not letting you get killed.”

Dean smirked. “Hey, it’s cool. Like I said, I may be young, but I’m a professional. I’m just gonna check it out, see if there’s any more of them out there. Get our weapons back, if they’re there. I’ll come right back.”

“Gimme the Vicodin, then, first,” Lee insisted. Surely he’d meant to ask for the sawed-off Dean had threaded through the crook of his elbow?

“Weren’t you in the Corps?” Dean asked, pointing at Lee’s eagle. “Man up, dude. My dad once took a hit in the leg and kept right on running. Didn’t realize he was bleeding until he got back to base camp.”

“Your dad…he in ‘Nam?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, well. Battle adrenaline’s a funny thing. But afterward, I bet he made fast friends with morphine.”

Dean set his jaw as if to deny it, but a moment later he dug into the pocket of the supply bag he’d stashed in the empty science lab. He brought out two tablets encased in plastic and paper and flicked them at Lee.

“Codeine,” he explained. “Don’t spend it all in one place. I’ll be right back.” He opened the door and slipped out, leaving Lee with half a clip in his Glock and his backup .38.

“Well, at least I don’t have to worry about walking beat the rest of my life,” Lee told himself, swallowing down one of the pills. “We’re all gonna die.”

~*~

Four Hours Earlier

Sam had known it was going to be an awful day. He just didn’t realize how bad it was going to get. First, he had a math test 1st period, and even though Dean had sat up with him past midnight, trying to explain the difference between sine and cosine for about the ninth time, Sam was sure he was going to crash and burn. He hadn’t had time to proofread his history paper because he and Dean had been cramming for the math test, but he had study hall to try to recopy it, at least. That was if Nate Delancy had left him alone for once. But the worst part by far was getting a glimpse of the substitute Biology teacher.

That’s when he’d realized he would be lucky to get through the school day alive.

He held up his hand.

“Yes, Mr…Winchester?” Mr. Fornham smiled sickly.

“May I have a bathroom pass, sir?” Sam asked.

“Sure.” Mr. Fornham wrote it out, and if his smile was fixed, no one else noticed.

Sam took it and walked down the hall with measured steps. He turned right at the open gap between buildings and instead of going to the boys’ room, he dashed down the corridor toward the library. There was a payphone just between the library and the administration building. Sam fumbled in his pocket for his calling card and dialed with shaking fingers. The phone rang twice, then connected.

“Who is this?” a gruff voice demanded.

“Dad?”

“Sammy?” The voice went from groggy to concerned mixed with annoyance.

“Dad, they’re here. It’s this school. Today.”

“Are you sure?”

“My science teacher’s a substitute. And it’s him. The guy you’ve been tracking. He’s got to have access to the whole school. Dad, what do I do? I can’t get everyone—”

“Calm down, Sam. Your brother and I are on the way.”

“I could pull down the fire alarm—”

“No. That’ll just tip them off. You just get away, calm as you can.”

“But…what if—”

“Sam, longer we talk, longer it takes me to get there with your brother. Now don’t do anything stupid. If you can get out, get out. If they see you or try to stop you, just cooperate. We’ve got some time. They won’t start anything until dark.”

“Okay.” He started to hang up, but then brought the handset back to his face. “Dad?”

“Son?”

“Shake a leg, okay?”

His father chuckled once. “We’re coming for you, Sammy. Promise.”

Sam heard the phone disconnect. He set down the receiver and headed back toward his locker. He tried to walk as if nothing were out of sorts. Two of the covered walkways met at a corner, with an open space on the other side, and the row of lockers beyond and under the balconies. He checked both ways before crabbing across the open space to his assigned spot.

“Winchester!” His hands fumbled on the combination dial and he whipped around.

Vice Principal Snyder came over to him. “Do you have a pass?”

“Yes, sir,” Sam told him. “I was just in the men’s room, but then I remembered I left a textbook—”

“Get your book and go back to class, Winchester,” Snyder ordered. Sam’s record and the fact that he’d arrived halfway through the semester but still made the debate and soccer teams clearly meant nothing to Snyder. In his estimation, all thirteen-year-olds were nothing but hormonal hellions looking for the chance to turn on their instructors like a pack of wolves.

Sam grabbed the first book that came to his hands. He wanted to get his knife, but he didn’t dare pull it out with Snyder watching, even hiding it behind the thick, wide cover.

Snyder crossed his arms. “Is that the right one?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then come on. Back to class. You’ve already missed about half the period.” Snyder practically frog-marched him back to the science lab.

When they got there, Mr. Fornham looked up sharply. “Ah. There you are.” He smiled in so predatory a fashion that Sam shivered. “Now we can start.”

He pulled out a walkie-talkie and a gun. “Quiet, please,” he said over the screams and gasps of the class. He aimed the gun at Snyder. “As for you, you’d best think about the safety of these children and help conduct them to room 142.”

“You’re crazy,” Snyder said.

Sam’s knees started shaking. Snyder was going to antagonize the fanatic in defiance of every single hostage situation, in any movie ever. Christ, he wasn’t Clint Eastwood, he didn’t have the stones to strong-arm a terrorist. Especially one who wasn’t interested in keeping his hostages alive.

Fornham merely chuckled, low in his throat, and Sam abruptly stopped his knees from knocking. He looked into Fornham’s eyes and saw the impulse before the man’s finger squeezed. Sam ducked. The shot was twice as loud as normal in the confined classroom, sound bouncing off stainless steel and epoxy countertops. Sam heard a soft thump behind him. He didn’t have to look; he’d felt the warm splatter land on his back, the back of his neck, his hair. He closed his eyes and swallowed down bile.

His classmates were freaking out, screaming, some of them diving under the tables. Sam couldn’t blame them. Vice Principal Snyder had been an asshole, but that didn’t mean anyone really wanted him dead. Well, maybe Nate Delancy.

Sam had to suppress a totally inappropriate giggle. It wasn’t funny.

“Quiet!” Fornham said again, louder.

Sam’s eyes snapped open, assessing the situation. About half the class had pulled it together. Most of the girls were crying, and a few of the boys too, but the screaming subsided. Many of them were pointing at Sam, not surprisingly, but for once it wasn’t because he was the new guy. Snyder’s blood was warm and sticky through the back of his shirt. He resisted the urge to peel the cloth away from his shoulder blades.

Fornham leveled the gun at Sam. Sam took an involuntary step back before choosing to hold his ground.

“You,” Fornham said. “Head of the line, please. The rest of you, form a line behind your classmate. Single file, please. And no talking.”

The gunshot must have been some kind of a signal, because as Sam turned around, men came running down the hallway. Sam couldn’t figure how they’d shown up faster than the teachers—but then, they’d been prepared, and maybe, he realized with a sickening jolt, the other classes had already been subdued. Then he realized that the walkie-talkie must have transmitted the shot.

“Ignore the body; it’s not like any of you liked him,” Fornham pointed out callously. “Room 142, if you please, Mr.…Winchester, was it?”

Sam had no choice but to follow the two men who’d shown up to aid Fornham. He went, hoping that Dad and Dean would arrive soon. And that they didn’t get themselves caught while attempting the rescue.

~*~

John called the high school office to save time. He told them that Dean’s grandfather had died and he was coming to pick him up so they could reunite the family. “I’m just packing a bag now,” John told the secretary, stuffing a duffel full of ordnance, “so I should be by to get him in about twenty minutes.”

“Yes, of course, Mr. Winchester,” she replied sympathetically. “We’re so sorr—”

He hung up, already moving to the next task.

He threw the weapons in the trunk and made it to the high school within a minute of his estimate. Dean saw the car from the main entrance where he’d been waiting in the shade, and he crossed the yard to close the distance. He folded himself into the passenger seat with coiled grace. Noting the duffel in the foot well, Dean started picking through and strapping on the weapons inside.

“Got a lead?” he asked through a grin.

“They showed up,” John said grimly. “At Crenshaw.”

That wiped the smile off his boy’s puss damn quick, as intended. “That’s Sammy’s—”

“Damn right,” John snapped. “This is no game, and it’s no drill, boy. We’re not going up against a disembodied spirit or a dumb creature operating on instinct. This is a highly-motivated, organized, deadly group of humans. They think, they have a plan, they can adapt quicker than a ghost. And there’s a possibility they’ve got your brother. Even if they don’t, they’ve got a couple hundred kids his age. So you need to focus. You gonna be able to do this?”

Dean nodded. John watched him register the full force of his lecture in stunned silence. “Yeah, Dad. I’m okay. We’ll get’em out. We’ll stop these guys.”

John clenched and unclenched a muscle in his jaw. “We better. These guys mean business.”

“So…” Dean hesitated. John flicked his gaze across the seat, offering permission to speak. “So, did Sammy call you? Was it on the news? How’d—”

“Sam recognized Fornham. I told him to just get out, but I dunno if he made it. I told him,” John continued, aware he was babbling a bit, but he forced himself to channel it into intel. It would calm him down, and might help Dean prepare, too. “I told him not to do anything stupid or heroic. If they stopped him trying to leave, he was to cooperate.”

“But he might have made it out, right?” Dean asked. His voice was tight, eyes wide, and his hand clenched his knee, which he was jouncing rapidly. Damn, the kid was already stressed.

“He might. But my bet is they’re already moving to secure the school.” It sounded cold to say it like that, John knew, but it was best to be clinical. If he—or Dean—thought too hard about Sam’s safety, they’d fuck it up for everyone. “Dean, listen to me. This is a job. It’s a harder job than you’ve worked before, but it’s still a job. You do your job, you do it right, we can get through this. Got that?”

“Yessir,” Dean bit out. His nostrils flared as he forced himself to breathe with his mouth clamped shut.

“Okay. Now, first pass is recon. We figure out how much of the school they’ve secured. What’s next?”

Dean nodded, chewed the inside of his lip, gathering his answer. “Infiltration. We find an opening and get inside.”

“Right. Go over the layout for me. Most likely point of entry to Sam’s school is?”

“Uh…not through the lot, or the back loading dock,” Dean answered. John nodded at him to continue. “Okay, the campus is laid out like the spokes of a wheel, sorta, with a central building and five or six others around it…balconies and covered walkways, open space in between.” By the end of his recitation, Dean’s breathing was calmer, his knee had stopped bouncing, and his gaze was focused on the picture of the school in his mind.

“Probably have to come at it through one of the lower classrooms,” he concluded with a definitive nod.

“Good man,” John told him. He needed Dean thinking about the immediate tasks, the overall plan, not fixating on Sam’s potential predicament. “We’re in; what’s next?”

“We…split up. Look for Sam. Play sapper.”

“Meaning?” John insisted, so that he’d know for sure Dean knew what he wanted.

“Meaning, as we infiltrate, if there’s the right opportunity, we take out the perimeter sentries, one at a time. Quiet.”

“That’s good, Dean. Focus on the job.” Even as he told Dean to focus, though, the contrast between his boys struck him clearly. Sam would have rolled his eyes and protested that John had taught them what a sapper was, so he shouldn’t need exposition; Dean simply repeated back the role and didn’t worry about John’s reasons for asking for clarification.

He turned right and pulled into the center lane. “What’s in your arsenal?”

Dean tapped the duffel, then each spot where he’d stowed a weapon on his person. “Sawed-off. Colt A1 with an extra clip, iron rounds in the Sig Sauer, silver in the Browning Hi-Power. Knife in my back pocket, butterfly in the ankle-strap. Weapons of opportunity in the school. And hand to hand,” Dean recited.

“And?” John prompted when Dean fell silent. “Most important one.”

“My head,” Dean remembered. “Win with your head, not your hands.”

“That’s it.” John nodded solemnly. “No substitute for fighting smart, son.” He checked his watch: just about noon. If he had read the lore correctly, they’d take the hostages now, keep them for twelve hours and then, at midnight…they’d conclude the ritual.

Which gave him about six hours to prevent the first sacrifices.

“Remember, if either of us is caught—”

“We’re alone. We’re not together,” Dean said.

“Don’t call me Dad in there, either.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m okay D—I’m okay,” Dean repeated with a half-hearted smile.

“John,” John permitted, returning the grim look. “It’s harder than you think. Practice. If they figure out they’ve got a family—”

“Yeah, I know. Ten times as much control. Got it, Johnny.”

John squinted disapprovingly. “Don’t get carried away with it, either.”

~*~

Two months ago, Patrolman Leland Scanlon had perpetrated a carriage of justice. He had framed a guilty man for a crime he didn’t commit, in exchange for an even worse crime that Lee couldn’t prove he’d done. Lee was feeling pretty good about it, too, all things considered, especially because it had led to being offered a chance to work undercover. And that might well put him in plainclothes within a year.

The job was to join a paramilitary group with suspected cult leanings. The leader, William Fornham, was some sort of religious terrorist. Phoenix PD suspected he was planning a hijacking of some kind and wanted an insider. Lee fit Fornham’s profile—young, single, male, no drug habit, didn’t smoke, no criminal record to speak of. In fact, Fornham’s recruits were so clean that they would be at home at Brigham Young University. Made the fact that Fornham was nine kinds of crazy almost funny.

Except that no one at the precinct was laughing.

So one month ago, Lee had shed his uniform, left his badge and gun at home, and walked wide-eyed into Fornham’s storefront church of God…only to discover that Fornham didn’t worship that kind of god at all.

“Valac uses physical pain as a conduit for his power” went a typical sermon. “You have all toed the line your whole lives; what has it got you? You must take what is yours. Use their pain and fear to attract his notice.”

The others took Lee’s arrival as an act of divine intervention. “Our 38th has arrived!” a young acolyte named Blake declared triumphantly the evening he came back again. “Just as Dr. Fornham said.”

“Thirty-eight?” Lee asked.

“The number of Valac’s legions,” Blake explained, “and the number Dr. Fornham needs. Just in time, too. Valac’s sacred festival day is very near.”

“Festival…like a ritual?”

“Yes, a ritual. A really important ritual.”

“Excellent. Does it involve vestal virgins?”

“I see we have a skeptic,” William Fornham appeared at the edge of the little group surrounding Lee. “Many come here and are shocked by what they hear. Others come to scoff and deride us for following Valac. Which are you?”

“Uh, neither,” Lee said respectfully. “I guess I’m…looking for something.”

“And will you know when you’ve found it?” Fornham asked intensely.

“I’d like to think so,” Lee said. He met Fornham’s eye, but man, it was uncomfortable. Much more difficult than he’d expected.

“Hm. You are wise, young man, not to be so certain. Our way is not for everyone. Most men out there are led by their appetites; we are men of discipline. Most would rather face an easy road; we would walk a path much more treacherous, but more rewarding in the end.” He cocked his head. “You’ll forgive me, but I don’t believe you mentioned your name last night.”

“Rick Posner,” Lee said.

“Are you recently moved to Phoenix?”

“No, I’ve lived here about five years,” Lee supplied out of his false background file.

“And what do you do?”

“Right now, I’m a security guard at the museum of natural history.”

Fornham was unfailingly polite and quaintly old-fashioned in his speech. He was clearly interested, and by the time he’d finished talking to Lee, he’d probed fairly deep into Lee’s cover story. Though it felt more like a conversation, Lee recognized it for a screening interrogation.

Two days later, his contact at the precinct confirmed that Lee’s profile had been thoroughly checked. He went back again, this time welcomed as one of the family, and within a couple weeks, he was in.

The problem was that being in, he couldn’t get out. He hadn’t been left alone, hadn’t had a single chance to make contact about any of his intelligence, couldn’t even claim that he had to go to work—because Fornham called his “employer” to tell him that Rick was ill and unable to report.

So when Lee rode along with five of his new friends, two hours behind Fornham’s advance crew, he’d had no way to tell his captain that they were heading for Crenshaw Middle School. He’d had no way to report that Fornham had 37 men to help control what they estimated would be a hundred and fifty of the school’s students and roughly twenty teachers. He’d had no way to inform the squad that Fornham had amassed assault rifles and backup hand weapons for each of his men, that each was trained to use them, and that none of them would hesitate to kill, even if their victims could be as young as nine years old.

His hope was that he could at least find a phone once at the school and get away long enough to call in the hostage situation, make sure that the police understood what they were up against. Fornham and his men weren’t doing it for ransom, weren’t planning to make demands or offer terms for surrender. It wasn’t a cry to be heard. Fornham wanted blood. He wanted carnage.

 _Jesus, I’m so screwed,_ , Lee thought as they pulled into the school lot.

~*~

They made the students sit on the floor. Sam was with the rest of his science class along the front wall with the blackboard; other classes sat in each corner, and two groups from fifth and sixth grade had been positioned in the middle. They told them to be thankful; the kids in the gym were far less comfortable.

Not that being held at gunpoint qualified as comfortable. He wished he could shower, too—Mr. Snyder’s blood and all had dried on the back of his shirt and matted in his hair. He kept wanting to comb his fingers through it, but feared finding any bits of brain or viscera on his hands afterward. He also didn’t want to freak out the littler kids (or for that matter, any of the older ones) by scrubbing off Snyder spooge in front of them. At least Mrs. Shawn’s band room didn’t smell like gym socks. Sam was afraid he was stinking the place up pretty powerfully, but he couldn’t tell anymore. It was like walking into a fish market: at first it smelled awful, but after a while, the strength of the odor faded and became hardly noticeable. Until someone lit it on fire, or something.

They weren’t allowed to talk, but that was nothing new in the eighth grade. There were a couple notebooks going around with stories and rumors. Mr. Snyder hadn’t been the only teacher killed, according to the notes. A couple teachers reportedly had refused to be detained in the teachers’ lounge, insisting that they should remain with the children in their charge. One account claimed the kidnappers had shot a PE coach in the heart for arguing; however, Sam knew he was universally hated by the students and no one had seen him die that he could figure out. Until there was a body, Sam wasn’t about to believe the rumor.

He pulled his pen out of his pocket slowly. There were only two guards watching them all, so it was relatively simple to avoid notice. He wrote in careful block lettering on the pad:

**Everyone just stay calm. HELP ON WAY! Don’t do anything stupid.**

Then he thought that was dumb. There were far more kids than kidnappers, even if they had guns. Surely if he could get everyone acting together, they could overpower the two attackers and reclaim the classroom.

Dad would do it.

But Dad had told him to lay low and wait for rescue. Did that mean Dad really feared these guys, or was it Dad’s backhanded way of commenting on his lack of confidence in Sam’s skills?

Probably both.

Okay, maybe that wasn’t totally fair. These guys were pretty hard core. Whether or not they’d actually killed any of the other teachers, they _had_ killed Snyder, with Sam standing right there, and in front of a whole class of kids. And if Sam tried something, even if he didn’t screw up (which he wouldn’t!), one of the other kids could screw up bigtime, and then they’d all be screwed. If any civilian kids died on Sam’s watch, Dad’d be furious.

Sam didn’t think he’d feel too good about it himself, either.

So he let the note stand, and passed the book on to the next person when he was sure no one was looking.

Lots of kids had been crying or freaking out when they arrived, but after the kidnappers got everyone seated, imposed quiet, and let the initial adrenaline rush die down, so had most of the crying. Sam scanned the room; he could still see a few blotchy faces and hear a few sniffles, but mostly everyone seemed to be in control of themselves.

Suddenly a small pocket of giggles erupted from the far side of the classroom. Instantly one of the guards went over, brandishing his rifle.

“Told you all to shut up,” he snapped. “What’s that?” he reached out and snatched away another notebook. Reading it, he shook his head. “Man, you chum are unbelievable. You got no clue, do you?” He flipped through a few pages. “Arright. Matt Brandtly. Where are you, boy?”

The students looked left and right nervously. Next to Sam, Chris Fisher started muttering, “Oh God, oh God, oh shit, oh God,” over and over.

“Chris, it’s okay, calm down,” Sam said to him quietly.

“They’re gonna kill Matt, Sam,” Chris said. “I know it.”

“I don’t think so,” Sam said with more confidence than he felt. “Just keep it together, dude. We’ll get through this, okay?”

Chris took a couple deep breaths. To Sam’s intense surprise, Chris grabbed his hand tight. He was sweating a lot and he gripped Sam’s palm hard enough to crush the bones together. “Okay,” he breathed. “Okay. I’m okay.”

Sam tried to smile, but couldn’t quite manage it. “Good, Chris. Um… Could I have my hand back?”

Chris looked down. He let go of Sam’s hand as if it burned. “Sorry,” he whispered, flushing red.

“It’s cool,” Sam muttered. He wiped his palm on his shorts to get rid of the sweat.

Meanwhile, the guards had pulled Matt from his class group and they were holding up the notebook. “Shut up, all of you!” one of them yelled. He leveled a handgun at Matt’s head. The room went silent. “Did you start passing this around?” the guard—sergeant, Sam decided—asked.

“N-no,” Matt stammered.

Sarge brandished the notebook. “But it has your name on it, Matt,” he said very reasonably. The calm of his tone was more chilling than his earlier yelling.

“Uh….”

“Someone took it? Started passing notes?” Sarge suggested.

“Don’t,” Sam said under his breath.

“Don’t what?” Chris asked.

“He’s baiting him. Leading him. It’s a trap.”

Matt was nodding. “Y-yeah. That’s it. That’s…that’s what happened.”

The guard nodded too, like he’d known that’s what Matt would say. “Whose idea was it, Matt? Your little uprising? Huh?” He pointed to a page and waved it under Matt’s nose. “Whose writing is this?”

“I dunno,” Matt swore. “I really dunno.”

“Somebody thinks he’s a hero,” the sergeant continued, turning slowly to address the whole room. “Somebody thinks he’s fucking Chuck Norris.”

There was a little chorus of gasps when he dropped the f-bomb, hastily shushed by others. Ignoring this, “Sarge” read aloud from the notebook.

“ _We should all rush them. If we take them all at once, we can get their guns._ ” He paused and studied the faces in Matt’s group. “We’ve got a tough guy somewhere. Well, now’s your chance, tough guy. You wanna play hero? You want to save lives? Step up, man. Show yourself, and your buddy Matt lives.”

He pulled back the slide, and in the silent classroom, they all heard the snick-CLACK as the slide popped back and he prepared to fire.

“C’mon!” Sarge shouted at the rest of the room. “C’mon, tough guy. Wanna be a fucking hero? Or is Matt here gonna get his brains blown out?”

“Stop it!” someone shrieked, a girl from the sound of it. “Why are you doing this to us?”

The guard smiled. “That’s for us to know and you to find out,” he taunted. “Still no takers? No one wants to man up?”

Matt’s knees went limp. His eyes rolled back in his head, which cracked against the floor as he fainted.

The sergeant rolled his eyes and sighed. “You, and you,” he said, pointing the barrel of his gun at two other eighth-graders. Sam knew one’s name was Ken, but he didn’t know the other boy. He was wearing denim Bermuda shorts and a tank with a backward ballcap. Ken and Bermuda stood up uncertainly. “Get him out of the middle of the floor,” the guard ordered. They tugged Matt out of the way. One of the girls started fanning him with her Trapper binder.

“As for the rest of you, anyone gets the idea to play Chuck fucking Norris—we’ve got the guns. You don’t. Don’t try it. You’ll only get yourselves killed.” He was smiling cruelly. Sam swallowed hard against bile that suddenly rose in the back of his throat again. This asshole was enjoying himself, giving them all false hope that they’d escape if they cooperated.

Well, not false. Dad and Dean were on their way.

“Sam?” Chris whispered.

“Yeah.”

“It’s gonna be all right? We’ll make it out of this?”

Sam smiled kindly. “You bet, Chris. Just hang tight. You’ll be fine. Promise.”

God, he hoped he wasn’t lying.

~*~

They parked the car down the road and approached the school from behind. They quickly discovered Dean had been right: two men guarded the loading dock. There was adequate cover for a sniper on the roof, too. On the west side, they decided they had a shot at the playground. Fornham didn’t have enough men to cover every entrance, and the few guards he’d been smart enough to station on the roof had set up to face the parking lots and main approaches—not the back access from the fifth-grade building. John covered Dean while the teen darted between outposts, first the jungle-gym, then the slide, finally a support column outside the door, where a small patio fed onto the school’s nearest building.

Once in position, Dean waved John on. John cast a nervous glance up; no guard in sight. He ran in a crouch for the door, didn’t bother stopping.

Using the wall for cover, they divided up the ordnance and John handed Dean a copy of the exorcism. He didn’t have to tell Dean why he might need it.

“Stick to the perimeter and stay out of sight,” he reminded Dean.

“Yeah, I know D—John,” Dean self-corrected.

“If you find Sam and you’ve got the opportunity—”

“Get him out, I got it,” Dean assured him.

“Be careful.” John put one hand on Dean’s shoulder to brace himself to stand. That’s all it was—bracing to stand up, because his knees weren’t what they used to be. He’d squeezed Dean’s shoulder only as a coincidence of catching his balance. And the way he’d cupped the back of Dean’s head lightly with his hand before releasing it, that was just to make sure Dean was looking at him. If anyone asked, that’s what he’d swear. On a stack of Bibles.

“You, too,” Dean said simply. He tapped his father’s arm and winked. “Let’s go stop these crazy fuckers.” With a (cursory, to John’s mind) glance at the hallway, Dean took off to the right.

John watched him go, then shook himself into moving left. “He’ll be fine, Winchester,” he told himself firmly.

He headed down the corridor to cut through the building toward the cafeteria. He’d only been to Sam’s school twice—once when he enrolled the thirteen-year-old three weeks ago, and again four days later when he met with the teachers to go over Sam’s transcripts—but his memory of the layout didn’t fail him. Unfortunately, the terrorists hadn’t corralled anyone there. He observed only one guard. To John’s grim satisfaction, the guy was reading at one of the tables. John chose shock to get the bastard off-balance.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he demanded, bursting through the double-doors as if he’d come to check on or relieve the guy. “Fornham catches you, he’ll make you part of the sacrifice.”

The sentry jumped up, dropping his book and overturning his chair. The metal folded on its hingepins and clattered to the floor. The hapless moron stammered an attempted excuse, but by that time John had closed the distance between them. He elbowed the asshole viciously in the face, knocking him out in one blow.

He hoisted the fanatic over his shoulder and edged to the kitchen doors for a place to stick him. He ducked back; looked like a few of the men were inside. Making lunch. The kitchen noises had covered his exchange, luckily, but it meant they might be checking things out here, too. He backtracked to the nearest girls’ bathroom and tied up the dude in the farthest stall.

The next target on his list was the gym, but as it meant cutting across not one but two courtyards, he aimed to check the main building’s classrooms and the teachers’ lounge on the way. He didn’t think they’d keep everyone in individual classrooms, but it wouldn’t be impossible.

He made it two corridors over before encountering (and sapping off) his next guard. John cursed—he’d underestimated how easy it would be for Fornham to secure the school. He hoped it meant a number of classes had escaped, though cops around made the operation a little trickier. But the lack of men was encouraging. Fornham either had way too few for his operation, or he believed his cause so blessed that he didn’t need sufficient manpower. John hoped both. He was counting on Fornham being a cocky sumbitch, but an understaffed cocky sumbitch was even better. Regardless, he dumped the unconscious guard in a classroom and moved on.

At the top of a stairwell, he paused to peer up through the railing. Seeing no one, he ascended as quietly as possible. His footsteps still made more noise on the metal steps than he liked, but lightening his tread and slowing down didn’t help much. He reached the top and pressed himself against the wall, as far under the overhang as he could get, to scope the walkway. It was clear.

He ducked his head into the open to scan the other direction quickly, dropped back when he saw another sentry (facing away, thank fuck), and hefted the Browning Hi-Power in his palm as a good luck charm. If he remembered right, the teachers’ lounge was just beyond that guard—which would explain what he was doing on an interior side of the building. If so, that meant likely they’d put the adults in there and were holding the kids somewhere separate.

John hovered by the stairwell, debating. Should he drop the guard and let the hostages out, or skip past him into the hallway beyond, to get to the main show? He could take the middle road, test this guy, maybe get some information. If the fucker made him, he could drop him then.

Decision made, he slipped his pistol into the waistband of his jeans and instead pulled the rifle off his shoulder. He held it in a familiar grip: right hand on the stock, left on the barrel. Just like countless patrols back in the day. Then he sauntered around the corner with an attitude between purposeful and bored.

“Hey,” he said to the guard’s back. The guy whipped around. “Whoa! Easy, Tex. Fornham sent me up to check on things here—all clear?”

The guard squinted at John. His rifle trembled a little with nervous energy.

“John, remember?” John said pleasantly. “It’s cool, don’t shoot me. Is everything clear up here?”

The assurance and the repetition seemed to put the guard at ease, but he still frowned at John. “Yea, everything’s fine. Sorry. I just… there’s a lot of us. I guess I don’t remember.”

John nodded. “Yeah, I hear that. So,” he continued, walking over to the balcony railing and making no attempt to shoulder his gun, “big night tonight, huh?”

“Yeah,” squinty-eyes said. “Think it’ll really work?”

John shrugged. “Fornham says it will. That’s good enough for me. You nervous?” he poked at the man’s obvious insecurity, figuring to make him even more scared if possible.

“N-no,” he lied. “Like I said, everything’s cool up here. You can tell Fornham…I can handle these bottom-feeders.”

“Good to know,” John forced out. “Say, is Jones up on this level, too?”

“Uh…” he looked around. “I’m not sure. I know Dennis is around the corner,” he pointed to the perimeter, “and the new guy’s over by the math building. Posner.”

“Any idea when you’re relieved for chow?”

Squinty blinked. John held his breath. “Sixteen-hundred,” the guy said. “Surprised you didn’t know—hey—”

John tapped him in the face with his rifle butt. Twice. Too late, he saw someone peering through the door of the teachers’ lounge.

“Are you a cop?” the man whispered dramatically. He was thin and tall, but looked solid enough. He wore his blond hair in a short ponytail.

“No,” John growled back. “Help me get this asshole in there with you before his nose bleeds all over the damn place.”

They dragged the unconscious guard inside. John paused to wipe the sweat off, enjoying the way the air conditioning sent instant shivers down his back as the moisture in his shirt grew cold. It was what Dean would call “Arizona hot” outside, meaning dry but not “Death Valley” dry, and the sweat mostly just got sucked into the air right away. But stepping indoors just after the exertion of the fight, his perspiration hadn’t evaporated yet.

Something like thirty teachers all started asking questions at once.

“Do you know how many people made it out?”

“Are the police on their way?”

“Is it over?”

“Where are they keeping the children?”

“We can get out—”

“Shuddup!” John demanded, as loud as he dared without yelling. “Now listen. You’re all supposed to be locked up here under guard, so don’t blow this. Anyone here ever use a gun?”

A couple teachers raised their hands, including, John noticed, the young man who’d assisted him. “How about hand-to-hand? Self-defense?”

A few more people nodded. Several women put their hands in the air.

“Good. Look, Fornham has men all over this compound. Campus,” he amended at the sight of a few puzzled faces. “It’s risky to try to get out. You’re better off if one of you changes into this shithead’s clothes and keeps an eye on the door. One of you stay inside and keep your weapon trained on that walkway. It opens and it’s not your man here, or me, or a cop, shoot first, ask questions later.”

An older guy stepped forward. “What about you?”

“Don’t worry about me—just keep your asses alive.” John turned to his ersatz assistant. “Lose the tie, genius. Take his Kevlar.” The teacher fumbled at his Windsor knot.

“No, I mean—what are you going to do?” the old teacher asked.

John squinted at him. “Said don’t worry about it.”

“Like hell. You’re not a cop—we have a responsibility to those kids—”

“Which you’ll just fuck up if you try to move around and rescue them,” John countered. “Look, this isn’t all of you, right?”

They nodded.

“So either there’s another bunch of you holed up somewhere under watch, or a bunch of you made it out of the school. If they’re away, then it’s a safe bet the cops are already closing in. If they’re under guard, then any of you gets caught and not only are the kids in jeopardy, but your coworkers, too. So keep an eye on that door,” he jabbed his finger toward it, “and don’t come out until this is over.”

He jerked his head at Ponytail, who had switched coats. “Tuck your hair into your collar,” John advised.

“Excuse me, but…” Ponytail said, following him outside, “aren’t you Sam Winchester’s father?”

John rolled his eyes. “So the fuck what?”

Ponytail—John finally placed him vaguely from the tour he and Sam had been given—jiggled his head a little in surprise. “Well…nothing, I guess. Except—” he reached out for John’s sleeve to stop him moving away—“you’re not a cop or anything. I mean…I thought Sam said you were a long-haul trucker.”

John held the man’s gaze but said nothing, daring him to ask the question he’d been pussy-footing around. When Ponytail dropped his eyes, John spoke. “That reminds me. You see a young kid, about 17-18, jeans, black t-shirt, short hair, tell him you’re one of the Beach Boys.”

“I’m what?”

“Just tell him if you don’t want to get knocked out.” John turned and went down the walkway before he had to answer any more inane questions.

When he came to the end of the building, he saw another guard stationed between the library building and the math classrooms. He figured this had to be the “new guy” Squinty had mentioned. Banking on “new” meaning unfamiliar with everyone in the cult, John decided on a repeat bluff.

“Hey,” he said casually.

Posner turned in a fluid motion, weapon out. He didn’t jump at all, didn’t spook, and he looked every inch like a man unaccustomed to being sneaked up on. In fact, John thought _Military_ almost immediately. His hair was high and tight over a face younger than the dark grey eyes that met his without any hint of warmth. Posner may have been new, but he knew he didn’t recognize John. _Shit_ , John thought.

“Identify yourself,” Posner said crisply.

“Yeah, I don’t think we’d had a chance yet,” John replied evenly. “Name’s John, Posner. Stand easy, soldier.”

Posner relaxed his stance, but not his grip on the firearm.

“I’d appreciate it if you’d point that elsewhere,” John said, as close to a request as he was willing to get. “Fornham sent me around to check on everyone; thinks the cops may be on the walkie-talkie frequency. You have anything to report?”

“No,” Posner said, head shaking slowly. “Any activity on the perimeter? Have we attracted police attention yet?”

John shrugged. “Seems pretty quiet.” He moved a step closer. Was it his imagination or did Posner seem a little disappointed that the boys in blue hadn’t arrived? “Hey, have you heard whether we got the whole student body secured, or did any of them make it out?”

“Last I heard, we’d sequestered fourteen groups,” Posner reported. “But that’s more than enough, right? So…the others that got away, apart from calling the cops, no big deal, right?”

“You call bringing in the cops not a big deal?” John wanted to know.

“No, I just mean…for the plan. It doesn’t affect the plan.”

John grunted. Posner was too well-trained and too concerned for the hostages for Fornham’s typical recruit. But that worked in John’s favor. He had been gradually moving in, while Posner’s weapon had gradually dipped toward the ground. So if Posner did try anything, John was well-positioned to stop him.

“Anyway, I’m making the rounds,” he said to end the conversation. “You off for chow at sixteen-hundred?” he asked as he passed Posner.

“Yep.” Posner kept his eye on John. John noticed that Posner also kept his weapon ready, though lowered, and tracked John idly with the barrel.

“Good enough. See you then,” John offered with half a wave. He could pretty much bet that Posner still didn’t believe him, but he hadn’t moved to call him a liar, either. If he moved quickly enough, he might at least get to the next post before Posner put it together.

He got three steps away and heard the click of the chamber of Posner’s gun. John whipped back to him, rifle up. Neither moved; each stared into the other’s eyes, gun barrels aimed at each other’s hearts.

“You’re not one of them,” Posner announced.


	2. Fic Post: A Loaded God Complex (2/3)

Five minutes after Matt fainted, the music room smelled like a catbox. Sam figured maybe three-quarters of Mrs. Harris’s homeroom—and all of the fifth and sixth grade classes—had peed their pants and were too afraid or embarrassed to say anything. Not that the bastards holding them all would have let them go clean up, probably. But Sam thought they’d have to do something soon, because the smell was getting vomit-worthy. Way worse than him and Snyder’s dried up spatter. The music room had large windows, and even with the shades drawn, the sunlight came in bright and warm on the carpet. What’s more, the kids, both the ones in discomfort because they’d wet themselves, and the ones in discomfort having to smell it, were getting restless because of it.

The one Sam thought of as the sergeant, the one who’d threatened Matt to a faint, called his companion and the guard just outside the door over to the piano bench for a brief conference. Across the room, Sam saw Nate Delancy, Wally Linstrom, and another of Nate’s gang seize their opportunity. They got to their hands and knees and crawled from their homeroom cluster to the next group over. Then a few seconds later, they moved again. In between, they checked to make sure the guards were still distracted by their conversation. Sam frowned in anticipation. Nate was a penny ante crook and a schoolyard bully, but he was smart. Sam played a subconscious tennis match between the two factions, focusing on the guards and then swiveling to encourage Nate silently to “Move, move, move, NOW!” In his head he heard Squadron Leader Bartlett in Dean and Dad’s favorite movie, telling Danny and Billy to haul ass in the tunnels during the air raid: “We can get dozens out in this darkness!”

Unfortunately, it wasn’t dark, and they weren’t masked by the cover of a tunnel. And Sam wasn’t the only one watching. One of the fifth-graders saw, gasped, and pointed. Her classmates shushed her—loudly. The two guards looked up.

“You gave it away! I don’t believe you!” a ten-year-old said to his classmate.

Sam sighed through his nose, resignedly, disappointed. So did half the room—it made a collective noise like air being let out of a tire.

It didn’t take the guards long to discover Nate and his posse sitting in a group of much younger students.

“What are you little shitheads doing out of your spot?” the sergeant demanded to know.

Nate smirked. It reminded Sam of Dean that time he got pulled over for speeding and wound up getting busted for carrying a concealed weapon (and DUI, which he wasn’t). He just couldn’t resist twitting an authority figure (other than Dad), especially when he was scared. Even Dad, sometimes, when he was scared enough. And Nate was terrified.

“We’re student teachers,” Nate claimed. He couldn’t keep the “Fuck you” out of his voice, though (also just like Dean) and the sergeant hauled him up by his polo shirt to drag him over to the door.

“Well, Smitty, think we just found Chuck Norris,” Sarge announced.

He threw Nate toward the wall. Nate actually hung air for a second before stumbling and landing hard on his ass. There were a few nervous titters from the crowd, but mostly gasps of fear, when he hit. Smitty and the third guy picked Nate up. They held him while Sarge punched him once in the gut.

“We were going to take you in shifts down to your locker room,” the sergeant informed everyone else reproachfully while Nate moaned. He hung between the two guys holding up his arms. He looked really puny. He looked like they could snap him in half if they wanted.

Sam felt Chris’s hand again. He squeezed back. “Chris, just don’t look,” he suggested. “Look away.”

“I can’t,” Chris whispered.

“I know,” Sam agreed sadly. Even if he could make it easier for Chris, it wasn’t fair to Nate. Not that Nate had been fair to anyone, least of all Sam. And he knew for a fact that Nate stole Chris’s lunch money about twice a week. Still, in this weird prison, he was one of their own, standing against the enemy.

Dean would have laughed at Sam for putting it like that. _You big girl,_ he would have said. _It’s not poetry, dude. It’s not fucking Kipling or some shit. He was an asshole. He’s_ still _an asshole, even if he doesn’t deserve to get creamed because he’s trying to escape._

The sergeant had continued, interfering with Dean’s voice in Sam’s thoughts. “We were going to let everyone change into clean clothes. Take a shower.” He lifted Nate’s head by his hair. “Chuck here fucked that up for you.”

If some of the kids had suppressed guffaws or gasps when he’d said, “shitheads,” they audibly reacted now. One fifth-grader turned to his neighbor and said, “He said the F-word again,” as if he couldn’t contain the commentary. As if someone were going to tell Sarge to watch his language, the way Dad still did occasionally when he felt like a round of, _Do as I say, not as I do_.

Dad would’ve also said that Nate was taking a fucking stupid risk. Dad would’ve told Sam his first priority was to look sharp, stay alive, keep everyone else alive if he could. Thinking about Dad helped. He and Dean had to be close. They might even already be here.

“Help’s coming,” he whispered to Chris, but it was for himself. “Help is on the way. It’s gonna be okay.”

Meanwhile, Sarge was telling everyone that it was Nate’s fault they had to sit in their own urine or smell everyone else’s and it was Nate’s fault that they weren’t going to get lunch, either. After a couple more sentences, one of the guards punched Nate in the gut again. They pulled off his t-shirt. Nate’s thin, flabby chest was already bruised and turning dark from the beating. Sam wanted one of the men—just one!—to realize that he was torturing a little kid—okay, so Nate was really a year older, maybe two, if the rumors of how often he’d been held back were true—but still. He was so young compared to his tormentors.

But they didn’t have an attack of conscience. Sarge grabbed a zip-tie from his pocket and used it to bind Nate’s hands at the wrist. Nate had started crying somewhere along the way, Sam wasn’t sure when, but he could hear him now clearly, blubbering and begging them to stop.

Finally, one of the guards hesitated, pulled Sarge aside. Nate slumped against his other assailant, either trying to catch his breath or just unable to stand anymore under his own power.

“If you don’t have the balls for this, Drake, you might as well be one of the chattel. That what you want?”

“No, I—”

“We’ll put you in the gym with the others if that’s how you feel, Drake. Don’t think I won’t do it—”

“I don’t have a problem with our mission, Martin, but would Dr. Fornham approve of…of despoiling a postulant?”

It was interesting, sort of, to watch the “Sergeant” (Martin, he now had a name) and his “troops” start to argue. Sam felt a little jolt of adrenaline surge through him; if Martin couldn’t maintain discipline in his ranks, he wasn’t so scary, after all. Maybe if the other two captors kept balking, Martin could be overruled…or overpowered.

Meanwhile, “Sergeant” Martin had pointed to Nate’s tear-streaked and snotty face. “That. Is not a postulant,” he pronounced. “And I think I know Fornham’s plan better than you, Drake.” He drew his knife from his belt. “In fact, it’s just as good a time as any to enhance the level of fear, the better to whet our Lord’s appetite.”

The second Sam saw the blade, he threw caution to the wind. He sat up straight and tapped Chris on the knee to get his attention. “Tell everyone to close their eyes,” he said to Chris.

He told Sarah Boyle on his other side, too, repeating a double-tap with his fingertips, the way Dad sometimes thumped him to pull his focus back to him. “Pass it on. Shut your eyes. Don’t watch. It’s like the end of _Raiders_ —you don’t want to see.”

He didn’t follow his own advice, but watched while the round of Telephone took effect around the room. Some of the kids—little and not—had already figured it out on their own before his message got very far. Good thing, because Martin made his intention clear when he slashed the knife across Nate’s arm.

Sam wondered how long it’d be before they added vomit to the smells they had to endure, along with lingering gunsmoke, pee, and blood.

~*~

“You’re not one of them,” Lee said to the stranger, gun level. He was dressed mostly like all of Fornham’s men, minus a bulletproof vest, but not all of the kidnappers had those. He wore a green cotton work shirt over a dark grey tee, fatigue trousers and combat boots, but his hair was long and he had skipped a shave that morning. Maybe a couple mornings. The thing that really gave him away, though, wasn’t that he was a little older than even Martin, Fornham’s most staunch follower, and it wasn’t that he looked more comfortable with his weapon than most of Fornham’s people. It wasn’t even that Lee hadn’t seen him before, and Lee had been trained to remember faces. It was the look in the guy’s eyes: Intense, but at the same time, tired and half dead. Like he might not even know how to smile. Lee squinted at him to cover how discomfited the man’s expression made him.

“Neither are you,” the guy returned. “You’re too military for this bunch. Cop?”

Lee hesitated. The Mexican standoff wasn’t bothering this guy at all, but he wasn’t lowering his weapon, either. “Where the hell did you come from? You’re not a hostage.”

“And you’re not a kidnapper. What’s your point?”

“Lower your weapon is my point.”

He waited a second, but then clicked the safety on and dropped his arms.

“Thank you.” Lee did the same, took a step forward. “Now do me a favor and leave. You shouldn’t be here.”

The guy snorted. “Trust me, I know what’s going on here.”

“Oh, is that right? And what’s that?”

“Bunch of cultists figure they can raise a major demon and appease him with human sacrifice,” the man said, cold as last week’s sashimi, “And I’m gonna stop’em.”

“Sir, you’re a civilian. You need to get—”

“Save it,” he said dismissively. “Your men ain’t getting in. Too much risk to the children. I’d tell _you_ to get to safety, but I need your firepower.” He scowled as if he could taste something ashy in his mouth. “Look, just go back in there and pretend I’m not here. Maybe you can help get the kids out.”

“Pretend you’re not…. I don’t even know who you are. I get a name?”

“John,” he said, not indicating whether this was his last or first name. “Posner’s your cover. Real name?”

“Scanlon.”

John nodded. “Now they think you’re in the club, right?”

“I’ve done everything but drink the KoolAid.”

“Good.” He checked his watch. “There’s not a lot of them. You’re gonna need to get to where they’re holding the kids—is it all one location, or what?”

“No. They’re in groups…some in the gym, some in larger classrooms.”

“Fuck. All right. Tell me everything you know about where the hostages are stationed.”

Lee shook his head. He was not about to get himself and a lot of other people killed because some paramilitary nut thought he could contain the situation. “Look, I know you think you can help—”

“Son, I’m the only chance you’ve got.” Suddenly, John’s gun was pointed straight at Lee’s heart, steady as Wyatt Earp. “And I’d hate to take you out, but you fight me on this, and I will put you down for the count.”

“You’re so worried about these kids you’d kill me to do it your way?” Lee asked incredulously. He needed a better handle on John’s mental state if he was going to negotiate him out of getting himself killed.

John snorted. “Never said I’d kill you, officer.”

Lee considered rushing John. He considered talking to him more, but the deadness in John’s eyes stopped him. He nodded acquiescence, figuring he could always double back and take John out later, if necessary.

“Okay,” John said approvingly, all business. “Now, I need to know how many hostiles, where they’re positioned, what ordnance they carry, and most importantly, how close-knit they are. What’s their chain of command?”

“Fornham. Then Martin—he’s fairly well in charge of the hostages.” He outlined the other major players.

“Thanks.” John backed away a step, then paused. “Listen. I’ve got…a man on the inside. Possibly helpful if we can get to him.”

“A hostage?” Lee asked.

“Yes,” John admitted after a beat. “But if we can get him away, he can turn sapper.”

Lee sighed. He had found a phone a little while ago, so he knew the cops were nearby, if not on scene already, but John had a point. They would take hours of standoff before they moved in, and Fornham intended to be done long before the police resorted to a full-on assault. It would be helpful to have three of them taking out the sentries and guards one-by-one, without raising an alarm. It wouldn’t work for Fornham’s inner circle, but it could at least even the odds a little. If John knew a maintenance man or even a teacher who was trained to fight, it might be worth asking that person to assume the risk. “Okay—describe him—tell me how to find him without giving myself away. Maybe I can help.”

John hesitated. “He’s about four-foot-ten, one-twenty, looks pudgy and clumsy but believe me, it’s muscle. Light brown hair, probably hanging in his eyes. He won’t be as scared as the others. He’s with homeroom 146, if that helps.”

“He’s a _student_?” Lee’s voice made a cracking noise he hadn’t heard since he’d been the right age to attend Crenshaw himself.

“Yeah, eighth grade, but don’t let that fool you. Just work the Beach Boys into the conversation and he’ll know you’re able to help.”

“What, like the lyrics?”

“No, the phrase: The Beach Boys. He’ll know it’s code.”

If he’d felt guilty about asking a civilian to risk himself in order to give other cops a way in, that was nothing compared to the indignation he felt at John’s suggestion. “You’re crazy if you think a teenager—”

“We do not have a lot of options and we do not have the time to argue about it. You either believe me or you don’t, but trust me, you don’t want this thing to go down. This is gonna make Oklahoma City look like child’s play if they succeed.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Right now, I’m your best chance. And you’re mine. Don’t fuck it up.”

~*~

Dean pressed himself flush between the wall and the outside of a classroom door. Next door to his left, a guard stood watch over a room filled with scared students younger than Sammy. He wanted the guard to walk by so that he could overpower him from behind, knock him out without any hint of an alarm.

He was on a second-level, outdoor walkway with four science labs. In the first one, Dean had temporarily stashed his duffel while he scoped out the hallway. Now he was crouched in the shelter of the second door, while the guard stood outside the third. Trouble was, the guy had come out, shut the door behind him, and now he was just standing there. Staring down the corridor in Dean’s direction, almost as if he expected to be jumped. _Guard the other way,_ Dean thought at him. _Go be vigilant with your back to me, you bastard._

After what seemed at least five minutes, during which Dean concentrated on holding perfectly still so that the door wouldn’t swing, keeping it as a shield between himself and the sentry, the asshole remembered to look the other way.

Dean ducked out and clipped his target solidly on the back of the head with his shotgun-butt. The guard dropped and Dean pumped his fist in the air in victory. He cast a nervous glance inside the room. Another cultist was inside, but wasn’t paying the door any attention. Score two for Dean.

Moving the unconscious body turned out not to be as easy as KO’ing him in the first place. The guy must have lined his pockets with lead. Dean tugged hard on his arms and legs, trying to pull him into the first empty science lab quietly and before anyone saw. The jerk’s fatigue jacket caught on the concrete walkway. He scraped his face up, too, and Dean froze when the man groaned in discomfort. He didn’t wake up, though.

“Shit,” Dean muttered. He bent down and hoisted the guy over one shoulder to fireman-carry him back to where Dean had left his stuff.

It only took a few seconds after that to dump him, tied to the legs of a heavy lab bench. But when Dean slipped back outside, he came face-to-face with a third kidnapper. He swore he’d checked both directions before leaving the classroom, yet here was one of the bad guys, just looking at him dumbly. He must have come up the stairs while Dean was inside the lab.

They stared at each other for a moment in silence. The new demon-worshipper looked about ten years older than Dean, with dirty blond hair and defined muscles under his bulletproof vest. Even with the element of surprise, he’d have been a lot harder to take down than anyone Dean had seen so far. He hoped that he looked at least as difficult to beat. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t attacked or raised the alarm right away.

“What are _you_ doing here?” the guy asked, with emphasis on “you” like he’d already encountered someone who shouldn’t be there. Which meant…. No. Impossible.

Dean lashed out viciously with his shotgun stock. His opponent caught it, if a little awkwardly, and wrenched it away. Dean heard it clatter to the pavement.

_Rookie mistake_ , Dean berated himself. He fired a quick kick at the man’s shins. He danced out of range; Dean followed, aware that he had to act fast or the guy could raise the alarm any second.

“Wait a second, kid!” the military-looking guy growled at him while returning Dean’s right hook with a swipe of his own.

“So you can cold-cock me?” Dean snarked. “Don’t think so.”

He threw a one-two punch combination. The guy blocked and ducked inside Dean’s arm length to close in. He grabbed Dean’s arm. Dean twisted away, but his opponent hung on and swept his leg. Dean tripped, fell forward, caught himself on one hand, and rolled away. His wrist smarted from the impact against the concrete, but he rolled up into a crouch and chopped out at the man’s knee.

“Jesus,” the guy hissed. “I said hang on. Any chance you’re a Beach Boy?”

It could have been a trick. They couldn’t have caught Dad so quickly, but if they had, they were hardcore enough to have tortured him into revealing he had a partner, made him tell the codes. But Dad wouldn’t have given him up that easily. Dean refused to accept that Dad _would_ have been captured by these idiots at all. He pulled to a stand and leapt out with a high kick. Again the guy dodged. Then something happened. Dean wasn’t sure how, but his assailant doubled behind him and locked his already tender wrist behind his back. And twisted. Hard.

“Ow!” someone said. It couldn’t have been Dean, because it sounded really girly, and that just didn’t compute. He felt something in his wrist grind and it made his teeth rattle. Another little squeak of pain emitted from near his ears. But it wasn’t him. Okay: It hurt. But it wasn’t him.

“Shut up,” the guy said, shaking him. “Now don’t make me hog-tie you, kid. Answer the question: Are you here with that John dude?”

Dean set his jaw, chin jutting out. “Go to hell, you demon-worshipping freak.”

The guy laughed in his ear. “That’s Officer Scanlon to you, kiddo. So are you a Beach Boy, or do I have two separate vigilante whackjobs on my hands?”

“Fuck you, asshole,” Dean said defiantly.

“Nice, kid,” the guard observed. “Look, I’m on your side, okay?” he continued with a sigh, as if annoyed to have to reveal a secret. “I’m a cop.”

Dean laughed, despite the fact that his wrist felt like a three-alarm fire. “That means you’re on our side? Man, you don’t know anything.”

“Okay,” the cop replied, and it sounded like a decision. Sure enough, he slammed Dean against the wall. “Listen, these men? They’re for real, jack-off, so your little amateur hour Rambo act had better wise up fast. I want you to shake your skinny ass right back where it came from. Go back to your school, kid. Let the professionals handle this.”

“I am a profess—” Dean began to protest, but another voice interrupted them.

“Posner? What the hell is this?”

Posner, Dean’s captor, glanced in the direction of his comrade. The fourth guy, a ginger-haired twenty-something, had come around the corner, brought over, no doubt, by the sounds of struggle. “It’s nothing, Gilchrist. Just a piece of trash I was escorting to the dumpster.”

Dean struggled and Posner did that twist again and Dean’s wrist exploded in pain. “OW!” he heard himself shout. Damn. He had to work on his pain tolerance.

“Let’s take him to Fornham—he might not be alone,” Gilchrist suggested.

“Nah, he’s just a kid thinks he’s Schwarzenegger,” Posner said. “Took out Miller, but Corey’s okay down there,” he continued, jerking his head toward the third classroom, whose exterior guard Dean had already knocked out. “Already asked if he’s alone.”

“And you believed him?” Gilchrist scoffed.

Posner jerked up hard on Dean’s injured arm. “I was persistent,” he assured his companion.

But the funny thing was, although he made a huge motion against Dean’s sleeve, it didn’t actually jostle the wrist. Dean made a show of pain.

“I’m alone! I swear!” he squealed.

Gilchrist shrugged. “We should still take him to Fornham.”

“Fornham’s got more important things to do,” Posner pointed out. “How about I throw him in with the teachers?”

“How about right down there with Corey?” Gilchrist gestured to the third classroom.

“Sure,” Posner agreed. He pushed Dean ahead of him, Gilchrist on his right. “Hope you liked sixth grade, kid,” he told him. Dean felt a light squeeze on his arm, jiggling the flesh like Posner wanted him to fight. So he did. Posner whipped him around in an “attempt” to subdue him, which gave them the opportunity for eye contact. Posner’s eyes slid to the right a second before he feinted left. Dean ducked away.

“Shit!” Gilchrist cried, just as Dean reached him and punched out with his good hand. Gilchrist went down.

“Good work, kid,” Posner said, coming up to him.

Dean grinned. He drew a breath to make some smart-ass comment about how Posner had underestimated him when Posner’s eyes went wide in fear. Dean whipped around. He barely had time to register the face of the man coming out of the classroom, much less the pistol pointed at him, before his ears darn near exploded from the deafening shot. It was twice as loud as normal because of the covered balcony bouncing the sound back at him.

He didn’t know when the shooter had entered the corridor, or how much he’d seen. He just had a vague impression of stubble and piercing blue eyes, then his vision narrowed to the gun barrel and all he could think was, “I’m gonna die.”

Posner was quicker, though, and before Dean realized what had happened, the older man had pulled him down and landed on the ground in front of him. Bright red blood was staining the armhole of the vest where it met his shirt.

Dean didn’t think; he brought his backup weapon out in less than half a second and returned fire. The terrorist—Corey, Gilchrist had said his name was Corey—went down loudly, clutching his gut. In his haste, Dean had rushed the trigger; Corey was alive. Dean wasn’t sure whether he felt relieved or disappointed. He had no time to puzzle over it, though. He grabbed Posner under his arms, ignoring his groan of pain, and pulled him all the way down the corridor back to the lab where he’d stashed both his duffel and Miller, the first guard. Outside, he could hear the kids moving into the hallway.

“Shoulda…secured his weapons,” Posner croaked. “They’ll…radio.”

“Sorry, I was concentrating on getting us the fuck out of there,” Dean snapped. He threw the lock on the classroom door. Even though it opened out, into the hallway, he set about barricading it with the nearest heavy piece of furniture. It turned out to be a glass-doored cabinet full of lab equipment.

“I don’t think anyone’s coming,” he confirmed, peering out what remained of the lead-lined window. The students were venturing out and down in little groups. Much as he wanted to offer a place to hide, he didn’t want to be responsible for them if they got pinned down. Plus, children on the loose would present the kidnappers with conflicting priorities, and might even keep him and Posner alive a little longer. Eventually the kids moved away and only Gilchrist and Corey remained. Satisfied they were as safe as possible for the time being, he set about finding alcohol or something to clean Posner’s wound.

“Think it hit bone,” Posner commented when Dean approached with a bottle of peroxide and some cotton batting. “They’ll radio. Tell everyone they’ve got a rat.”

“Can’t be helped,” Dean grunted. “I’ll get scissors.” He also pulled out two containers of salt. Before returning to Posner, he poured lines on the windowsills and on the floor around his barricade.

“Expecting giant killer slugs?” Posner asked.

“Yeah,” Dean quipped back. “Really damn fast ones.” He knelt by Posner’s side and cut away his sleeve carefully.

Posner had a tattoo. The design was so familiar that it made Dean do a double-take, looking for the scars Dad had got last year when a kappa had raked its claws across his biceps. The stripes had broken the line of the anchor and made his eagle’s talons look deformed. But Posner’s tat was pristine, black, and proudly declaring “Semper Fi.”

“S’matter, kid? Never seen a Marine before?”

“No, just….” Dean couldn’t finish his thought. “Dude, you took a bullet for me.”

“Yeah, well. Not one of my best decisions. Still, they’d hardly let me stay on the force if I let some whackjob fanatic shoot a teenager in cold blood.”

Dean swallowed hard. “Let’s look at that shoulder,” he offered.

~*~

John had pressed Scanlon for passwords and intel, all the while inwardly cursing his luck. Yes, Scanlon might be useful; more likely, he’d turn John in as soon as the whole thing was over. If he survived—it was just as likely Scanlon would get himself eighty-six’d trying to control the situation, or countermanding John’s actions.

Still, running into Scanlon made getting close to the terrorists more feasible than ever. The ease with which he’d penetrated this far already surprised him; now with passwords and some names and posts, his chances of getting to Fornham approached less than a thousand to one. More to the point, Scanlon had a fair idea of which classrooms had eighth-graders, which meant John could get Sam out. He was already devising ways Sam could help from a position of relative safety.

Though a little older than most of Fornham’s men, the password earned him a funny look, but no challenges, from the guard outside the gym.

About a hundred kids sat in despondent groups all around the room. Some of the older kids were in the bleachers. Most of them were on the court, cross-legged or leaning on each other for support. They looked pretty ragged, but then, they’d been there for hours already.

The boy’s body in their midst didn’t improve their spirits, either.

The kid was hanging from one of the basketball hoops, neck at a sickening angle. His body was dripping blood from long slices down his legs that turned his gym socks and sneakers red. The room stank of blood, piss, and vomit.

“What the hell happened here?” John frowned, suppressing his outrage.

“One of Martin’s from up in the music room. Acted up. So Martin made an example of him.”

John grunted, unable to trust his voice. He remembered the first time he saw a child get murdered. He’d been a boy about this one’s age, back in Da Nang. He’d hung around base until some of the guys started giving him odd jobs. One day he’d stolen a grenade out of Deacon’s kit and threatened everyone in the barracks. John, barely eighteen, had tried to talk to the kid, but his Lieutenant had merely walked up behind John, aimed, and shot the boy between his eyes.

He hadn’t even pulled the pin.

There’d been others, of course, boys pressed into turning soldier too young, younger than Dean when Dean started shadowing John. But they’d all been combatants, even if they hadn’t been able to choose their fate. This? Was so not that.

He swallowed, trying not to choke on a tongue gone suddenly dry. It wasn’t Sam—he was sure of that, at least, and felt both relieved and guilty for feeling relieved.

A quick scan was enough to verify that Sam wasn’t even in the gym. There were four guards total; two in the bleachers that lined one side and two on the basketball courts, spaced roughly evenly between the hoops and the doors to the locker rooms. About a hundred and twenty kids were sitting in groups, perhaps two thirds of them younger than Sam, and of the remaining forty, fewer than half were male. Sam’s mop-top and his alert, judgmental eyes weren’t anywhere in the mix.

But he was stuck now. He couldn’t leave without a child, to support the story he’d told the sentry outside. “Fornham wants one of the brats now,” he said, repeating it to the nearest one inside. “Something about a test run.”

“Uh…sure,” the guard said, confused, but hiding it. “How about one of the little shitheads up in the bleachers?” He pointed to a group of boys with one of his two buddies standing near them. Several of the boys had their hands zip-tied, and one of them had duct tape across his mouth.

“That’ll work,” John muttered noncommittally and shuffled over. He climbed the bleachers with long steps, skipping the middle stair on each level. He was aware of a hundred pairs of once-innocent eyes watching him. He reached the knot of boys who’d been set aside as troublemakers and said, “Fall in, you brats. Eyes front.”

They made a ramshackle troop, but evidently they’d been cowed by their treatment—and that of their schoolmate.

“Mister, listen, Nate didn’t do anything—” one of the boys started to plead.

“Shut up!” the guard told the child. “Martin says he did plenty. You want to end up on the other side of the court, you maggot? There’s three other backboards to use.”

“Pipe down,” John said to both the guard and the kids, trying to sound more bored than disgusted. He sized up the boy to the left of Duct-Tape-Mouth. He was Sam’s age and looked familiar, with the blond rat-tail and his heart-shaped face. John couldn’t place him, but he thought he might know where Sam’s last class had been when the raid hit. “You. Come on.”

They headed down the steps toward the exit. Halfway between the bleachers and the door, John realized his mistake. The kid _was_ familiar because he had latched on to Sam in Sam’s first week at Crenshaw. Name was Billy…something. He and Sam used the same bus stop. One day he’d followed Sam to the house they were renting, barged in over Sam’s protests, and roused John from a deep sleep on the couch.

John had been upright, gun retrieved from under his pillow, and ready to fire at the “intruder” inside of a second. He’d come back to himself only because of Sam’s hasty move to pull Billy out of the line of fire. It had taken Billy all of three more seconds to hear his mother calling; it had taken much longer for John to listen to Sam’s claim that Billy had not been invited.

_What the hell_ , John reasoned. _A little five-K run never hurt a growing boy_.

But now, Billy was pressing close to his hip like John hadn’t scared the crap out of him the first time they’d ever seen each other. John hoped none of the four kidnappers thought it odd that Billy seemed willing to go with him. He kept a firm grip on Billy’s arm to keep him moving quickly out of the gym and to make it look like he was man-handling him a little.

They almost made it, too.

But just as they hit the foul line nearest the door, perhaps thirty feet from scot-free, Billy looked up at him reverently. “Mr. Winchester? Does this mean you’re taking me home with you and Sam now? Why can’t everyone else go home?”

John stopped dead. He heard the guards bring up their rifles. He looked behind him at the four of them, rolling his eyes as if he’d rather just pop the ankle-biter right there, but he had orders to bring Fornham a child. It gave him the chance to gauge their reactions. The situation wasn’t good. They were gullible, but not stupid. He turned back to Billy and spoke as coldly as he could, which Sam would have said was about sub-arctic.

“Don’t know what the fuck you’re thinking, you little brat. Must have me mixed up with someone else.” He shook Billy by the arm roughly and gripped the back of his. Squeezing the base of the boy’s head, he hustled him toward the door. “Now keep your trap shut and come on.”

He managed to get Billy outside before Billy failed his IQ test again.

They passed the exterior sentry and turned the corner. Then Billy, in what he obviously thought was a whisper, whined, “But…I’m not wrong. You’re Sam Winchester’s father. Don’t you remem—”

As soon as Billy opened his flap again, John grabbed him by the shirt and twisted it, pulling Billy onto his toes. “I told you to shut the fuck up,” he said, losing any forbearance he had left. Billy began to cry. Loudly.

John smacked his own forehead in exasperation. He scooped Billy up on his shoulder and drew his gun just in time for the sentry to round the corner to check out the commotion.

He didn’t give the guard a chance, but aimed low to take out a knee and ran for it. The guard’s shout of pain served as confirmation that John would improve his lead. But the noise was sure to alert the four men inside the gym. Would they radio Fornham and his seconds on the walkies, or would they try to handle it themselves? John wondered. Funny how the brain could launch into overdrive in a crisis. He was moving fast, but everything seemed to slow down. _Damn it,_ he thought furiously. _Need a closet so I can stash the kid. Billy. Billy the kid—hah_ , he added grimly. _Hope they don’t take out their frustration on the students back there._ Then an awful thought: _They heard him. They know he knows Sam. They’ll find out which room Sam’s in. They’ll find him. Sammy…._

He just had to find Sam first.


	3. Chapter Three

Sam had just about had enough. Enough waiting around, enough comforting Chris and being all brave, and most important, enough of sitting there letting these dickwads terrorize the crap out of everyone.

Martin had tortured Nate in front of those kids. He’d sliced his calves, so that blood soaked Nate’s socks and ran down over his Nikes. Then he’d radioed the gym and told Drake and Smitty to take Nate down there, where they would hang him from the basketball hoop as a warning to all the other kids in there. There would be no escapes.

Nearly half the students had been sick, and the other half looked like they’d have puked if they’d had anything in their stomachs to start with. Everyone—even people who hated Nate—flinched along with him when Martin sliced the knife across Nate’s leg. Sam thought it was kind of like in the olden days, on ships, watching a flogging. For the first time, he thought he understood why public corporal punishment had been thought so effective a deterrent. And why it had created so much sympathy for its victims that it had eventually been determined inhumane.

Forty minutes had passed since they’d dragged Nate away, and Martin had not let up lecturing them about how they were good for nothing but sacrifice, how they had been chosen to do something so noble they probably couldn’t understand it—and probably didn’t deserve the honor of dying for Valac.

“Man, Branch Davidians have nothing on this loser,” Sam muttered, patience fraying.

“Huh?” Chris grunted beside him.

“Nothin’,” Sam said quietly. “I’m just sick of this yahbo.”

“Sam, he’ll kill you,” Chris warned. “Please don’t say anything.”

Sam puffed out his cheeks and released the air in a huff. “Y’know, Nate was right about one thing,” he said. “If we all rushed them now, all at once, we’d have a chance.”

“A chance to get _killed_ ,” Sarah Boyle said archly, butting in on his left.

“I don’t think so,” Sam observed. “See, they’ve each got Ruger 10/22s, with a ten-round magazine, but they need to pump between each shot. And Drake? There’s something wrong with his—his magazine’s not seated right. See how it’s sticking out too much where it fits into the stock? That probably means he hasn’t even racked one in the chamber yet, or he’d know it’s screwed up. I’m betting it’ll jam, or at least fail to feed. Smitty’s got his safety on,” he continued, inclining his head to the right where Smitty leaned on the music stands. “Plus, his gun’s slung across his back. It’ll take him forever to pull it around and be able to fire it. So if we were fast enough, we could probably get to him before he’d be ready to fire. Martin’s a problem, though, even without a rifle. He’s not gonna put his gun down, and he’s got some kind of backup strapped to his ankle.”

“How can you tell?” Chris asked. Sam blushed, worried for a moment that he’d once again revealed himself as “Sam Winchester, The Amazing Freak.” But Chris seemed to be more fascinated than appalled.

“Well, see the way his left cuff is folded into his boot?” Sam hid his pointed finger with his leg.

“Yeah, I see,” Sarah breathed.

“Me, too,” Chris whispered, sounding pleased.

“Okay, now look at the right one,” Sam instructed. “See how it’s got a bulge and it’s not tucked in all the way?”

“Whoa, that’s cool,” a new voice behind Sam added. It was Matt Brandtly, back among the living. “What else, Sherlock?”

“Sh…” Sam warned. “Okay. Well, I think if we can devise a reason for him to come over, we can distract him, and…I can get his piece.”

“Seriously?” Sarah asked.

“Yeah—well, we’ll have to be quick,” Sam mused. “And careful….” He looked around and realized that a number of kids had been edging closer to him. He now had a small court facing him, including Wally Linstrom.

“How the heck do you know all this?” one of the others wondered.

“Yeah, and how come you’re covered in blood, but you’re not even a little freaked? What, did you transfer here from Detroit or something?”

Sam’s hand wandered back up to his hair and he self-consciously rubbed the matted mess. He became aware again, acutely, of Sarah sitting next to him, and the fact that he must stink. But really, being covered with human remains, while creepy, and being held at gunpoint by men, while scary, wasn’t nearly as frightening as being told to wait in the car, in the open, while Dean and Dad chased down a shifter—one that could have come after him at any moment—and that was over a year ago. But he couldn’t very well tell any of them that.

“We…lived in South Central LA for a while,” he declared solemnly. That earned a ripple of impressed nods and “Oh”s of understanding.

“What’s your plan, Sam?” Wally asked. Sam wasn’t surprised to find that Wally wanted vengeance for Nate. What surprised him was how Wally turned control over to Sam so easily. It gave him instant cred in a way almost nothing else could accomplish. Well, except maybe just having told them he’d lived in gangland.

“I think if we took out Martin, we won’t have to worry too much about the others.”

“The fuck are you ladies all jabbering about?” Martin demanded. He waded through the kids to the nexus surrounding Sam.

“Sam told Chris that Tom wants to ask Kimberly out, but he’s too scared,” Sarah said immediately and very matter-of-factly. “And Tom said he’s _not_ too scared, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever get the chance, because you’re going to kill us all. But then Chris said that Nate _deserved_ to die, but you’d better at least give _us_ last requests, because even _murderers_ get last requests, and we’ve never hurt anyone, except for that time Steve singed his dog Benji’s fur, but hardly _anyone_ remembers that anymore, and so he—Chris, I mean, not Steve—he figured for _his_ last request, he’d ask to go to his prom, because _everyone_ knows that you _have_ to grant a last request, like in the Evil Overlord’s Guide or something—”

“Shut up!” Martin shouted at Sarah. “God, what the fuck is wrong with this bitch?” he asked Drake and Smitty, twisting to face his audience.

Sam put his hands in his lap quickly and smiled at Sarah, nodding thanks. The gun was already warm and fit his palm comfortably.

“Get him!” Wally screamed. The others all around Sam grabbed Martin’s clothing and pulled him down. One pair of hands reached the hem of his jacket; another clawed at the pockets on his fatigue pants. As he fell, Martin’s pistol went off, the round hitting the ceiling. A couple people screamed; Smitty ducked into a crouch, covering his head like a scared turtle. A shattered acoustic tile fell in a spray of foam. Someone wrested the gun from him with two hands, and then they were on him from all angles. Meanwhile, Sam sprang to his feet and leveled Martin’s backup at Drake.

“Don’t move,” he said, sounding a lot more like his dad than he thought possible. His heart was pounding even though he’d already swiped the gun, and all he’d had to do was stand up and aim. “Someone get Martin’s gun and cover Smitty,” he ordered.

“Got it,” Matt said. Matt yanked the rifle away and immediately began to make machine gun noises with his mouth. He was clutching the stock, but shaking the gun as he “air-fired.”

“Careful, Matt; the safety’s off,” Sam reminded him. “Okay,” he said to Drake and Smitty, “ _very_ slowly, put your weapons on the floor and kick them away. Chris, get the guns.”

Drake and Smitty complied, expressions warring between abashed and relieved. Martin had been kicked and pummeled by the students, who were now tying his wrists with the zip ties they found in his back pocket.

“Good,” Sam congratulated everyone. He looked around at the little crew and felt sort of like the pride he thought his father might feel when Dean had done something perfect, first-time. “Now, we’re getting out—”

The PA crackled. “Attention, intruder,” a voice came over the air a second later. “We know you’re still at large,” the voice announced coldly. “But kindly remember that we have your son. Cooperate or, please believe me, he will die.”

Sam’s attitude turned intense and fierce in a nanosecond. His mouth went dry and his brain went into overdrive at the implications of the announcement. His stomach turned over again, after he’d thought he couldn’t come any closer to throwing up. He looked around at Chris and Sarah, who stared at him dumbly, then at Drake, who was kneeling with his hands on his head, and Smitty, being tied up by Wally and Ken. Sam rejected the two of them as small potatoes. He wanted the big fish.

Martin was curled fetal with his face turning purple from the beating he’d received. Sam hauled Martin’s head up by the hair, much as Martin had abused Nate earlier.

“Where’s Fornham, you bastard?” he snarled, whipping him in the face with the pistol. “Where is he, you sick fuck? Where?!”

“Sam, what the hell?” Chris put a steadying hand on Sam’s arm.

“They’re talking to my Dad,” Sam spat. “They’ve got Dean.”

~*~

Officer Scanlon was okay, Dean decided, but that didn’t mean he was ready to actually befriend a cop. He couldn’t very well _not_ respect a guy who’d taken a bullet for him, even if it did put them at a disadvantage. A little while ago he had doused Scanlon’s shoulder with peroxide and put on a field dressing. He held off giving him the codeine out of his little field medkit until he’d decided it was safe to check the hallway. Dad might need it, though Scanlon had assured him Dad was okay when he last saw him.

To keep occupied, he was reloading all the weapons he’d taken from the balcony and from Miller, who still slept soundly in the back of the classroom. Scanlon was flipping between channels on the walkie, listening for a sign that the cultists were coming for them. So far, he was staving off shock, but barely.

“Hey, if you don’t mind me asking, where did you serve?” Dean wondered, making conversation while they waited for the posse to intrude on their OK corral.

“Desert Storm,” Scanlon replied. “I figured, how different can one desert be from another?” He squinted up at the transom above the door. “Boy, was I wrong.”

“There’s lots of different kinds of hot,” Dean agreed. “Arizona hot isn’t West Texas hot, and that’s way not Alabama or Florida hot. Figures Persian Gulf hot would be completely unlike anything in this part of the world.”

“Been around, huh?” Scanlon surmised. “Lemme guess: That Marine pop of yours is career military.”

“Yeah,” Dean lied with a gregarious smile. “All our lives, one base to another, that’s us.”

“No, he’s not,” Scanlon smirked.

“Huh?”

“Marines have Pendleton, Lejeune, and Cherry Point, kid,” Scanlon informed him. “Three or four other minor facilities. Not like Army bases or AFBs. I may be doped, but don’t bullshit me.”

“Okay, fine. We just move a lot,” Dean admitted testily. He stowed the extra clips in the duffel. “If you know the answer, why ask the question?”

Scanlon shrugged, then winced from the way the involuntary motion tugged his injury. “De…detective work,” he said when he could breathe again. “I don’t know _your_ answer. But what you choose to say tells me a lot.”

“Like what?” Dean inquired, on the defensive instantly. What had he said that was so revealing? What did this joker think he knew?

“Like you and your friend John. He reminds you of your dad—military, but probably doesn’t stomp on you like your old man did. Right?”

Dean snarled at the implication, but it was better than Scanlon uncovering something true about the supernatural.

But Scanlon wasn’t done profiling. “So, I figure you took off from home, maybe a couple years ago, met this John guy, paramilitary extremist, took you under his wing, taught you everything you always wanted Pop to show you. Getting close?”

“Not even warm, Officer Friendly,” Dean smirked.

“C’mon, Dean. It’s okay to want a mentor. Trouble is your friend John is just as crazy as these sick bastards. Truth, now: Where did he pick you up?”

Dean scoffed. Scanlon was going way too far down the wrong road. He decided to cut him off before his fantasy got any sicker. “At the hospital, when I was born. He _is_ my dad, dumbass.” He “tsked” in mockery. “You don’t know nothin’ about me, man. Nothin’ about us.” He crawled to the barricade and peered out. “And you’re not—”

The speaker in the corner of the classroom crackled. A second later, a voice spoke over the air. “Attention, intruder.”

Dean listened to the message with growing dread. By the end, his agitation couldn’t be contained. He couldn’t sit still while these dickwads threatened his brother. He grabbed his sawed-off and one of the rifles, stuffing his pockets with extra shells and magazines.

“I gotta get out there,” he announced. “Stay here.”

“No. No way. It’s one thing to go scope out the territory and gather some intel, but I’m not letting you head back into their clutches alone.” Scanlon tried to get to his feet. He fell back after only getting to his knees, looking green with nausea.

“How’re you gonna stop me?” Dean half-taunted, half-threatened. “You don’t get it; they’re talking to Dad. They’ve got Sam.”

“Sam? Who’s Sam?”

“My brother, okay? They must have made Dad and figured out Sam was in the school.” Dean double-checked the chamber on his shotgun and tucked it under his arm. He popped the clip out of his backup, tapped it once, and slid it back in the grip.

“Okay, okay,” Scanlon held up his good hand. “Don’t panic, Dean. We’ll save him. I’m betting the squad’s out there now.”

“You think they can handle this?” Dean’s voice rose in volume…and unfortunately, in pitch.

“I think they’ve got more experience with hostage situations than you—or your dad,” Scanlon countered mildly. He sounded like he was trying to tame a skittish horse.

“I thought you said you’d been in with these guys,” Dean said, frowning. “They seem like the ‘negotiate with cops’ kind?”

“No,” Scanlon admitted with a sad shake of his head. “But you try to get to Fornham, guns blazing, they’re gonna kill you, they’ll kill your brother—assuming they already have him.”

That stopped Dean’s nervous pacing. “Come again?”

“Think about it, Dean,” Scanlon commented sanguinely. He seemed way too calm—maybe it was the codeine. “How many kids have they got here? Couple hundred—in different classrooms, all over the school. How quickly d’you think they could identify your brother?”

“All they need to do is ask,” Dean reasoned. “Even if Sam’s smart enough to suspect a trap, no one here has any reason not to give him up.” The whole thing made him sick to his stomach: that they never stayed anywhere long enough for loyalty, that kids in general were so cutthroat, that Sam always tried to fit in and never quite managed it. But it was what it was—no sense dwelling on what wasn’t.

_Play the hand you’re dealt_ , Dad would say.

“Well, let’s say they did find him,” Scanlon allowed. “Your dad wouldn’t want you to compromise your own safety—”

“That’s exactly what he _would_ want,” Dean said angrily—not at Dad, of course, but at Scanlon for trying, however kindly, to confuse him. “It’s my _job_ to take care of Sam, dude. Like I said, you don’t know shit about my family.” He prepared to move the cabinet and glanced back at Scanlon, surrounded by rifles he probably couldn’t fire one-handed. “Got a backup?”

Scanlon reached for his inner ankle and pulled out a .38. Dean scowled at it. He checked the hallway. “Hang on a sec,” he said. He shifted the cabinet away and slipped out. Corey and Gilchrist were gone. A blood trail headed down the walkway where it looked like Gilchrist must have supported Corey as they stumbled toward their comrades.

Unlike the last time he’d ducked out to check on things, the classroom door stood open and the students were nowhere in sight. And just about then, he heard people coming. He hurried back to the science lab.

“It’s me,” he called hastily to identify himself to Scanlon. “We’ve got company coming.”

He relocked the door and shoved the cabinet back into place, knowing the flimsy button in the doorknob wouldn’t hold anything for long. Scanlon had pushed himself forward with his Glock in his hand. He dragged the duffel after him, bristling with the other weapons: the .45 Gilchrist had used to shoot him; Corey’s rifle, and all the others Dean had brought with him.

“Any clue how many?” Scanlon asked.

“Didn’t stick around to find out,” Dean said regretfully. “They’re not using the radio?”

“Nah, probably know we’d be able to listen,” he said with a frown. “That’s okay,” Scanlon assured him. “But we can’t stay in here.”

“Too vulnerable?”

“No,” Scanlon replied, wagging his head. “You said the kids are at large. We have to get to them, help them stay safe.”

“Listen, Mr. Protect-and-Serve, that may be your mission, but—” Dean ducked his head instinctively as a gunshot cracked against the reinforced glass. He dove for the relative cover of the lab table next to Scanlon. “Guess we’re stuck,” he said with an impish grin.

Scanlon grimaced and clumsily primed his rifle with one hand.

What Scanlon had said about battle adrenaline turned out to be completely true. The echo of the single shot in the hallway was the coo of a dove compared to the clatter of gunfire that peppered the door and the walls of the lab. The reinforced glass shattered within the first few seconds of constant fire. They spent the next few minutes in an old-fashioned shoot-out worthy of the movies. Once the cultists blew off the lock, they had to put down their weapons to push Dean’s barricade aside. There were only four of them, but two of them laid down covering fire on the door and walls while the other two cleared the debris. Then they ducked low and tried to run in like Hawkeye and BJ avoiding helicopter blades.

Dean and Scanlon huddled at ground level, used the storage drawers as cover, and aimed for extremities to disable them while their buddies tried to shift the barricade away—legs, mostly, since they weren’t covered by the Kevlar. Scanlon, though pinned, matched Dean for aim. Before long the first two attackers were down and the second two had to stop and reload. Dean rushed to the barricade and hit them in the knees before they’d replaced their ammo. After that, they weren’t so interested in shooting anymore.

Dean shook his head. “Is being a cop always this easy?” he asked Scanlon.

“No substitute for a stupid perp,” Scanlon answered, coming up behind him to look over the four wounded men. He was definitely much perkier than before the shooting started, but he still took care not to move his left arm at all. He knelt down to inspect the damage. “We should probably get field dressings on them.” He didn’t sound happy about it; more like it was his duty to keep them from bleeding out.

“Nuh-uh, no time,” Dean protested.

But Scanlon had found someone who was conscious. “Hey! Kimmett. Where’s everyone else?” He hauled up on the guy’s jacket. “Got some painkillers here. Want’em?”

“Yeah, man. Please—”

“Where’s everyone else?”

“Looking…looking for the…students. Please, man…my knee….”

“Yeah. Dean, give him some codeine.”

Dean held up a tab, but he twisted his mouth in disapproval. “What about Sam?” he asked, snatching the pill back at the last second.

“Who?”

“Sam. The kid the announcer said they’re gonna kill.”

Kimmett groaned. His head lolled backward. “There’s no kid, okay?” he told them. “By the time we figured out what room he was in, they were all gone. They’re getting out.” He looked up at Scanlon. “Martin was in bad shape. They kicked the shit out of him.” He began to giggle, then shiver.

“He’s going into shock,” Scanlon said. “Give him the meds, kid.”

“Not a kid,” Dean grumbled, but held the pill to Kimmett’s lips and followed it with a little water from the canteen.

“They’re all loose?” Scanlon asked. “All the students?”

“Dunno,” Kimmett admitted. “But at least three classrooms that we passed. And the teachers. This was so dumb…. Oh, God, I’m gonna die.”

“No. But you’ll be in prison for a good long time,” Scanlon promised. “C’mon, Dean. Let’s find your brother.”

~*~

Sam gave Martin’s gun to Wally. He didn’t want to touch anything that had belonged to the man. Then he led the whole troop of kids out of the music room, leaving Martin and Smitty tied up on the floor and pushing Drake ahead of him by brandishing the man’s own handgun. Some of the kids wanted to stop at the bathrooms, but Sam wouldn’t let them. He was too anxious to get to where they were holding Dean. When they got to the end of the building, he told everyone to split up.

“Chris, you and Matt take the younger kids and make for the edge of the school grounds,” he advised, picking the students who seemed more on the brink of losing their shit. “There’s gotta be cops there by now. Just make sure to keep your hands up if you see them, and tell them loud and clear that you’re students and not to shoot. They’ll cover you.”

He handed a shotgun to Sarah. “Sarah, you take this. You and Wally go to the teachers’ lounge. Open up as many classrooms as you can on the way—don’t try to engage the kidnappers; just open the door and run on. The more chaos, the better…these jerks won’t know who to secure first. There’s too many of us.”

“Won’t they shoot us?” Sarah asked.

Sam patted the gun in her hand. “Look like you know how to use it. Give it to Wally if you’re scared to carry it.”

“No, I’m okay,” she insisted.

“They won’t shoot, not when it starts falling apart,” Sam assured her. He hoped he was right, but he couldn’t think of a better diversion, and he had to make sure as many of the kidnappers as possible were occupied so he could get to Dean…and Dad. “If all else fails, play hide-and-seek.”

Sarah looked him up and down and wrinkled her nose. Sam believed for a moment that she was about to refuse, and he tensed. But then she nodded. “Okay,” she said. “But Sam? You should really clean up.”

Sam shook his head. “No time, thanks.”

“What about you?” Chris asked earnestly.

“I’m gonna save my brother,” Sam announced with determination. Dad had told him to aim a little low with higher caliber guns until he could control the recoil better. He leveled Drake’s Browning at Drake’s ribs, so that when he fired, the kick would put the bullet in his heart. He cocked the hammer all the way back and thumbed off the safety without looking away from Drake’s eyes. A muscle in the man’s jaw worked nervously. “And you’re gonna help me.”

Drake dropped his eyes, but not his scowl.

After standing by to make sure that Chris’s group got away safely, Sam waved Drake forward. They went with Sarah and her group for a short ways until their paths diverged. Then Sarah turned left while Drake led Sam toward the school administration office where the PA was. Sam worried that they’d encounter other cultists despite his plan to keep them busy. He worried he’d have to prove his sincerity by shooting Drake and leave himself without shield or guide. He worried the police would storm the school and arrest Dad and Dean, assuming they were the enemy. He worried that with the plan going awry, Fornham would start the ritual ahead of schedule, and summon the demon anyway.

Then he heard gunshots. They were coming from above, perhaps a building away. Sam thought for a horrible moment that the cultists _were_ shooting his schoolmates, after he’d told Sarah so confidently that they wouldn’t. But then, more muffled, he heard returning fire. “Dad,” he breathed, suddenly certain that he knew what was going on. He wanted to go toward that noise, but knew just as certainly that Dad would go ballistic if Sam deliberately put himself anywhere near a firefight. He rebelled against instinct and stuck to his plan.

“Listen, kid,” Drake said. “It’s gettin’ crazy out there. Just do yourself a favor, and let me go. You can go join your little friends, okay?”

“You listen to me,” Sam said through clenched teeth. “You just take me to my brother, you dickhead. If we see anyone, we’re going to take cover. If you make a sound, if you tip them off in any way, I’ll shoot you. I swear to God. Got that?”

Drake tensed. Sam lowered the barrel of the Browning from Drake’s chest to his crotch with a glower. “Okay, okay, I got it,” Drake said in a hurry.

The plan worked to some extent. They only had to duck aside a few times, and while Sam held his breath, Drake didn’t chance getting shot. It took about ten minutes, including the time they spent hiding, to skirt around to the nearest part of the administration building. They reached a corner and Sam peered across the campus.

“The cops are out there,” he pointed out the flash of sun on a car hood to Drake. “Your friend Fornham is toast.”

Drake sighed. “Kid, give up if you know what’s good for you. Fornham’s probably starting early. The cops won’t know what hit’em.”

“Man, you’re dumb,” Sam observed. “Why would anyone want to summon a demon?”

“Valac’s not a demon; he’s a god,” Drake recited with awe.

“He’s a demon, asswipe,” Sam insisted. “Trust me; I’ve done the research. Tell you something else: Demons don’t stop to ask whether you’re their followers or not. They just kill you. What’s worse, prison or death?”

“How would you know?” Drake asked. “You’re just a kid.”

“I’m the kid who put Martin on his ass,” Sam pointed out hotly. They heard steps fall heavily on the stairs at the end of the walkway to their left. Sam shoved Drake under the eaves of the stairwell.

“How can you be so sure?” a gravelly voice asked.

“Are you kidding? I’d recognize that whine half a state away,” the second voice declared audaciously.

“Dean!” Sam shouted.

“Sammy?” Dean called. His voice was the mixture of concern and anger that it usually took on whenever they’d been forcibly separated. It was amazing how Dean’s timbre dropped about an octave when he got frantic like that. Not that he’d ever admit to panicking when he couldn’t find Sam any given moment.

“Dean!” Sam abandoned his hiding place. He kept the pistol aimed loosely at Drake, but really, he didn’t much care now if Drake got away. Dean wasn’t a hostage. He was alive, he was safe, he looked whole, and Sam had never been happier to see him. Dean pulled him in with both hands and checked him head to toe. “I’m okay, Dean,” Sam kept saying, but Dean wasn’t listening.

“Sammy, what did they do to you?” Dean asked, patting the back of his head, his shoulders, turning him to look.

He remembered that he was still coated in blood and brains. “It’s not mine,” he tried to explain. “It was Mr. Sny….” He broke off. Dean pushed him aside and looked beyond him to Drake, who hadn’t moved, too fascinated by the brothers’ reunion.

“You sick fuck,” Dean cried viciously, launching at Drake. He lashed out with a right cross and Drake dropped like a stone. Dean hauled him up and cracked him again. “Sacrificing innocent kids? You better be glad he’s okay….”

“Hey, hey, Dean, whoa!”

The owner of the gravelly voice had come down the stairs and rounded the corner. His left arm was in a sling made out of a handkerchief and medical gauze. A Marine tattoo showed where his sleeve had been cut off. He had dirty blond hair cut high and tight and he looked younger than Dad, but was a hair taller and almost as broad.

“Easy, champ. Easy,” he walked past Sam to Dean and carefully placed his right hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Everyone’s okay, Dean.”

Dean looked at his own fist like he hadn’t been aware he’d started pummeling Drake with it. He looked up at the Marine. “Right….” He said slowly, like he was just realizing where he was. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” The guy turned back to Sam. “You must be Sam. I’m Lee.”

“You’re one of the cultists,” Sam said cautiously.

“He’s a cop, Sammy,” Dean told him, coming back over and rubbing his knuckles. “What are you doing here—I thought they were holding you at gunpoint.”

Sam held up the pistol, safety on. “We sorta took matters into our own hands. I thought they’d caught you,” he added. “That announcement—”

“That’s what I meant, the PA—”

“They said they were gonna—”

They looked each other in the eye. “We gotta stop Dad,” they said in unison. They took off together toward the administrative office.

“Hey, don’t mind me!” Sam heard Lee call after them.

~*~

John hauled ass away from the gym, Billy bouncing on his shoulder. He anticipated that at least one able guard would pursue, and if he didn’t, he’d be on his radio alerting the others to their rat problem pretty quickly. He had to find Sam in a hurry.

He passed a girls’ bathroom and ducked inside for a place to hide and form his strategy. He set Billy down.

“The fuck is wrong with you?” John demanded. “You could have got us both killed. Now are you done bawling?” he asked gruffly. “Because I will knock you out if you can’t keep quiet.”

Billy sniffled, but nodded. He didn’t even bitch about being in a girls’ bathroom.

“Good. Now, quietly, d’you know where Sam is?” he asked Billy. “I mean, where he was before this shit started?”

Billy shrugged. For all that he’d been eager to wag his tongue before, he was taking the order to shut his piehole seriously now.

“Shit. Class schedule,” John muttered to himself, pacing. He wished he’d paid more attention. Dean almost always knew Sam’s patterns, what classes he took which days, but John had always been abysmal at keeping track of that sort of thing for either of the boys. What the fuck day was it, even? Tuesday or Wednesday?

Outside, he heard a commotion of tramping feet and voices. He froze. Most men, looking for other men, would discount the women’s bathrooms, but if they decided to lay out a grid, that wouldn’t matter. He listened, tensed for a firefight.

But the voices were high-pitched and included some whining and crying. Perhaps the terrorists were moving the kids somewhere more secured? John didn’t risk it. He stayed put, weapon primed, until the noise faded. He ventured back out after a twenty count; the corridor looked deserted again.

The pause gave him time to think, too. Sam had called him, said Fornham had been his substitute science teacher. The science labs were on the upper level of Building Two, he remembered that from the tour—remembered wondering why anyone would put Bunsen burners in a room that wasn’t on the ground. But Fornham surely wasn’t playing guard-dog himself, so they must have combined Sam’s with another class. _Idiot_ , he told himself, _Scanlon told you that they grouped them, like in the gym. Think straight, Winchester._

“Arright, listen to me, uh, Billy,” he said. “Go into the far stall and stay there until the cops come to get you. Got that?”

Billy nodded vigorously and stayed rooted to the spot. John pointed wordlessly. Billy’s eyes widened with comprehension. He closed himself in the bathroom stall.

John moved on with a sense of purpose. If the other cultists recognized him, fine, at this point. He was through fucking around—and running out of time before they figured out which child was his. As he crossed the open walkway to the next building, he caught a flash of metal. He dove for a support column just in time to avoid the whistle of a shot. _SWAT team sniper?_ he wondered. _Just fuckin’ great._ He pushed away and dodged the few feet between the column and the corner of the next building. But the stairs were in the open, too aligned with the sniper to risk running up them. Instead, John kept to the covered walkway, under the stairs, using the buildings on the quad as his cover.

_They’ll probably have another sniper at the other end,_ he thought glumly. He had the length of the building to think of a way to get upstairs. Before he got there, though, he had something worse than a sniper to worry about.

“Attention, intruder,” the PA announced crisply. “We know that you are still at large. But kindly remember that we have your son. Cooperate or, please believe me, he will die.”

John stood stock still, transfixed by the polite, slightly cultured voice telling him to surrender, telling them that if he didn’t help round up the children who had escaped from the gymnasium—children he had helped to escape in the first place—they would torture his son before they killed him. It was Fornham’s voice, of that John was certain.

A piece of the puzzle fit into place for him: the voices, the clatter on the concrete outside the bathroom—that had been the students from the gym. They must have run while the guards came out to look for him. _Nice goin’,_ he congratulated them privately, hoping that the snipers could tell the difference between grown men and unarmed kids.

“You have five minutes to comply,” Fornham’s polite drone informed him. “Or your son will suffer.”

_Touch one hair on Sammy’s head—_ John stopped. He reviewed Fornham’s threats quickly, and sure enough, he had never mentioned the boy by name. Just “your son” or meaningless pronouns. Never anything about where or how they had him. Never letting Sam say anything to prove they had him. _Could be a bluff. Or it could be…._

“Dean,” he said, the thought forming into a word without any conscious effort. The science lab was no longer anywhere near his goal. He checked his ammo, confirmed that the round was still chambered, and plunged over the edge of the walkway to dart between buildings. His legs pumped violently, bent low in a crouch, pushed with all speed to get to new cover. A shot ricocheted off the sidewalk. John flinched away, but didn’t stop moving. The building would offer its own protection in three steps, two…safe from snipers. He paused, caught his breath. Even running every day, he wasn’t as young as he used to be. And Arizona was fucking hot.

Dean would remind him that West Texas and California hot were different from, even worse than, Arizona hot. “I’m coming, boys,” he promised. The bricks at his back seemed to vibrate with his resolve.

He got his bearings. The Admin Office, where the PA was, would be on the west side of the building he was currently using as a prop. Smart of Fornham, too, to set up there, because it was on the inside of the campus, where it would be harder for cops to pick his men off with high-powered rifles and telescopic sights.

John wasn’t sure he’d be leaving much for the cops.

He moved in a controlled walk to the end of the corridor, figuring there was no reason to let any of the cultists suspect anything if they didn’t already. At the corner, he took a deep breath and turned, pistol loose in his hand and that hand low by his thigh: ready, but not obvious.

There were two men in the front of the office, neither one Fornham, neither one Sam or Dean. “Who’re you?” one asked immediately, fumbling on the desk for his weapon.

John leveled his nine-mil. “I think your boss was looking for me. You wanna tell him I’m here—and don’t even think about it,” he continued, sliding his eyes to the second guard. Number Two froze halfway to his holster. “And bring the boy out here, too,” John added. “I’ll want to make sure he’s safe.”

The men looked at each other and then Number Two nodded. “I’ll get them,” he said calmly.

John held Number One at gunpoint and moved to secure both men’s firearms. By that time, the second guard came out of the Principal’s office, followed by Fornham.

He was dressed in a suit, well-tailored, with a gold tie bar and gold cufflinks. His eyes were as cold and brittle as the day John had met him in his little storefront church back when he’d started investigating the cult. For a man of John’s age, he looked at least another five years older, with steel grey hair and highly distinguished crows’ feet. He was small, considering how many people he had influenced. He remembered John’s face, too.

“Mr. Holcomb,” he said, not warmly, using the name John had given. “Or is it Winchester? I’m a bit confused.”

“It’s give me my fucking son,” John replied, “and cut the bullshit.”

“Your son is somewhere in the school,” Fornham told him, smooth as eighteen-year-old Scotch. “You must have noticed that we didn’t let him speak to you? Why should we risk separating him from his classmates? The chances are so much more…random this way, don’t you agree?”

Fornham smiled and John thought of poisonous lizards in the desert. “No, it was _much_ more effective to make you come to us.”

The door opened behind them. John heard several men enter, heard the unmistakable sound of rifles cocking.

“Put the guns down, please,” Fornham requested.

A bluff. It had been a bluff, a trap to bring him out of hiding and right into their hands. But at least it meant they didn’t have Sam, after all—at least not right at their disposal. _Bad choice of words._ And they didn’t have Dean. And Scanlon and his buddies in blue were on the scene, too. Fornham wasn’t getting out of this. That could either make him vulnerable…or desperate. Either way, John figured he still had a chance, if he could keep Fornham distracted. He set the Browning down along with the other two guns. The two guards retrieved their weapons and made John back up from the desk.

“Ya know, the cops are already here,” John informed him.

“No matter. We have time. Police want to negotiate, to keep us talking. We’re happy to talk. Meanwhile, we’ll start the ritual.” He nodded to his men and three of them left, leaving four watching John.

“Oh, right, Valac,” John said disdainfully. He took half a step forward. “Ever summon a demon before, Fornham? How’d it work out for you?”

“Valac is no mere demon,” Fornham reminded him. “If you’d really listened that night you spied on us, you’d know that Valac is the source of power and reward for his loyal servants.”

“My experience,” John said dolefully, “demons’re generally only interested in rewarding themselves. Not a lot of room for humans.”

“Ah, but that’s where the students come in. Including your son, of course.” Fornham hooked one leg over the desk to perch there, twitching his trouser leg up elegantly. “Give a demon enough incentive, and it will recognize you as an ally.”

“The students?” John scoffed. Another half step. “Would that be the students that are loose on the grounds, running to the cops if they’ve got half a brain among them?”

Fornham’s mouth tightened. It was the first sign of annoyance John had seen. “They wouldn’t have escaped if you hadn’t interfered,” he told John tersely. “Which is why you’ll be helping us round them back up.”

John shook his head. “No can do, chief,” he said cockily. “Maybe you don’t get it, but I’m one of the good guys.”

“You’re about to be one of the dead ones,” Fornham retorted.

“You think your chance of survival is so high?” John goaded, taking another half-step in. “You’ve got a dead 13-year-old in the gym, did you know that? How do you think the cops are going to treat you? You think the DA is going to accept anything less than the death penalty?”

“I’m about to sacrifice over a hundred souls and you think I care about mortal punishment?” Fornham murmured so calmly he sounded almost amused.

“What would you say if I told you I’d already blessed the water tank?” John asked when he could find his voice again. “That I’ve drawn sigils of protection all over the school?”

“I’d say you’re lying,” Fornham said.

The door flew open behind them. Fornham turned to look. In half a second, John grabbed his Browning and twisted Fornham into his grasp, shielding himself with Fornham’s body.

“Drop your weapons, or I drop your boss,” John growled at the four guards.

“Dad!” Dean came in with his shotgun at the ready. Sam appeared a step behind him with one of the Rugers the cultists had all been carrying. John’s knees turned to water, but he forced himself to keep his grip on Fornham. He wanted to check them for injury; he told himself there’d be time later, after the threat was neutralized.

“Drop’em. Hands up! Against the wall,” Dean ordered. His voice carried a lot more authority than his years should have given him; he sounded like he did when he was yelling at (or for) Sam. Luckily, the guards responded to the barked instructions, focused on the double barrel staring them in the face, and didn’t question. The rifles went down; Sam slid in and kicked them away with care.

“Sammy, get out!” John shouted. Sam trotted out without argument, ducking meekly behind Dean’s protective circle. It looked like there might be something staining the back of Sam’s shirt. His hair was a mess. John turned his head for a better view. Fornham twisted in John’s grip and tried to force the gun out of his hands. John whipped the gun down and squeezed the trigger. Fornham fell away, minus half his gut. Powder stains and blood stained his fashionable suit.

“Whoa,” Scanlon said, appearing in the doorway. John looked up. Scanlon looked like he might fall over himself. John recognized Dean’s field dressing on his shoulder, and the tattoo on his arm below the neat bandages. Scanlon held the other arm out, physically signaling that he had blocked Sam’s view bodily, but what Sam witnessed or hadn’t was the least of John’s worries.

“He sent someone to start the ritual,” John told Dean, ignoring Scanlon’s attempt to intervene.

“Yup, he did,” Scanlon agreed. “But they didn’t make it far.”

~*~

The clean up took most of the evening—and that was just the priority stuff. Luckily, Sam Winchester and his friends had managed to free most of the hostages on their own. The teachers had also escaped at some point (Lee suspected John’s involvement) and were helping the police sort out returning the children to their families. They found one little boy cowering in a girls’ bathroom, stunned silent, and were trying to get a psychologist down to talk to him right away. Someone found Nate Delancy’s parents and broke the bad news to them.

Dean and John made short work of removing all John’s prints from the office. Lee watched them and wondered if their efficiency was a sign that they’d done something like this before. Still, the shooting was as clean as something like this got. He’d arrived at the office just in time to see Fornham practically throw himself on John’s gun, and he’d testify to that if necessary.

So would the witnesses, he told them, if they expected any clemency at all.

Trouble was, Winchester and his boys had no intention of sticking around for the dog and pony show. John was already sending Sam and Dean overland to get through the perimeter and wait for him at their car.

“Where’s the car?” Lee asked.

“So you can have a patrol watching it?” John chuckled. “No way. Dean, Sam, go on.”

Dean brought Sam over and offered his hand to Lee. “You should get your shoulder looked at,” Dean told him.

“Yeah, tell me about it. Hurts like a sonofabitch. Take care, Dean,” Lee told him, shaking warmly. “Try not to turn commando again before you finish high school.”

Dean smiled angelically. “Well, if Sammy can avoid being at ground zero every time we turn around, I think I can manage that.”

“Wasn’t my fault,” Sam insisted.

“Yeah, whatever, squirt. C’mon, Dad says to shag ass.”

“Bye, Sam,” Lee held up his hand. Sam waved back, but his brother was already pulling him away.

“You really should stick around,” Lee told John as the boys headed out across the playground.

“Can’t do it,” John answered with a frown. “Fact is, we’ll be leaving Phoenix soon,” he said, holstering the nine-mil in his waistband.

“Really,” Lee said sardonically. “Y’know, you’re a material witness.”

“I know.”

“So’s Dean.”

Winchester nodded. “Which is why we’ll be leaving Phoenix. Tonight.”

Lee looked over where Sam and Dean were walking. “Look, I know it’s not my business, but Sam should probably talk to someone,” he said with concern. “I don’t know if he saw you shoot Fornham, but the Vice Principal, uh, Snyder, was blown away right in front of him.”

“He told you that?”

“He told Dean that, a couple minutes ago,” Lee clarified, gesturing to them with a wagging finger. “I just overheard it. Tried to tell him before, in fact, but they hared off after you first.” This last sounded more like a gripe than a report.

John frowned. “Sam’s okay.”

“Are you seriously telling me he’s seen a man killed in front of him before?” Lee put his hands on his hips in disgust.

John looked him in the eye. “I’m seriously telling you, Marine, that he’ll be fine. He’s seen worse than an innocent man dying.”

“Man, I should—”

“You know, Dean’s not kidding. You should get that shoulder fixed up. Before you do anything else.” John squinted into the sunset. “Just give us a head start,” he reasoned. “Tell them whatever you want, but…we’re done here. We’re moving on.”

Lee sighed. “I really shouldn’t.”

“But you’re really going to.”

“Oh, yeah? Why?” Lee demanded.

“Semper Fi,” John said.

And infuriatingly, Lee knew he was right. He’d cover for them while they slipped away. He was sure the witnesses would tell them about a vigilante, but he’d stick to his story—that he’d been made trying to release some of the hostages and he’d holed up in the lab until he was sure he could get away. By the time he arrived in Fornham’s office, the man was dead.

Yup. It was the truth, anyway.

Mostly.

And maybe, just maybe, it would be enough to get him that promotion. _Detective_ Leland Scanlon. Still had a good ring. No doubt, his first case would be to find the mystery man of Crenshaw Middle.

He held out his right hand to Winchester, who shook it.

 

~Fin~


End file.
